“And rend your heart and not your garments.”  (Joel 2:13)

Internal change over externalism has always been the goal that God has sought.  Religious formalism never substitutes for inward reality.  But what do we do get this inward response?  Now, there is the catch.  For this too is a gift of grace.  God orchestrates circumstances, trials, teachings, relationships so that we come to the place that we sense our powerlessness and embrace the fact that God is everything.  “Change my heart, O God” is a prayer we can confidently pray knowing that it is the very thing God wants to do.