Change is a natural process . Things around us evolve from one state to another. As far as nature is concerned it is observable that some events will keep repeating. That is the reason why first order change is not easy. A change from within is rarely effective as things persist to return onto their initial state. But there are a lot of proposals in natural sciences and psychology to make change possible and effective. First order change requires planing and efforts . Second order change is possible and happens everyday but is rarely predictable. For the atheist it is a result of a long period of efforts or consciousness as well as good planing, for us believers it happens only by the will of God and according to his plan.
Because it is a necessity especially when life traps us in a circle of repetitions without any progress, change has been the credo in many fields of human sciences.
Research by psychologists have concluded that change is possible when it is made gradually. Change normally occur in stages. It is recommended for those who face difficulties in changing a pattern therefore to divide the pattern in stages and implement the stages one by one. Change is the natural process that helps break some repetitive patterns we might be trapped in .
Sometimes resisting change can be a catastrophe, especially when the status quo becomes destructive. But when the consequences of the change are clearly more destructive than the status quo then change should be undertaken with caution.
Real change must occur slowly as a matter of fact. But the religious view is that every important and useful change must be in the plan of the creator. If religions did not exist the world will still be in a stage of oppression and injustice. Many people will remain immoral and practices such as slavery and alcoholism and adultery will be the standard way to spend the free time. Many advancement in major fields of science and technologies did not take into consideration the ethical aspects. The consequences are tremendous on civilisation.
Fortunately prophets were sent to mankind to admonish them to change. Change however is always very difficult. There is a distinction between first order change, that is a change from one state to another within a same system, and second order change, which is mainly a radical transformation. There is a French saying that things change to become the same. This is because some internal aspects of things never really change. Humans get used to things and sometimes its becomes almost impossible to change. Even some bad habits are very difficult to get rid of. At the end of the year people take oaths to give up smoking, drinking or many other bad habits but very few can achieve their goals at the end. With the power of faith, especially religious faith, many people have been capable of achieving a huge transformation of their behaviour sometimes within a very short period of time. If many fail on their own then it is possible that the power for real change comes from outside, from the unseen. Small groups of people without any considerable mean have been capable of transformations that have changed our ways of seeing and doing a lot of things. Indeed a few of them did not claim to be believers in any religious doctrine but some of the major changes with positive consequences on our lives were made by men of God or spiritual leaders. Many of them succeeded where big organisations with considerable means have failed.
When the American government passed a law in the 1920’s to ban the sale, production, importation and transportation of alcohol for moral and medical reasons, it did not really work. The law led to corruption and organised crime and the prohibition was replaced by another law in the 1933. You can see that men are not really capable of a great transformation except by the permission of God.
It took Moses just a short time to free the Israelis from bondage. Jesus(Issa) need only 3 years to teach the Gospels that are being considered and discussed, till today by more than a billion of Christians in the world. And Muhammad(pbuh) needed only 23 years to transform the polytheistic pagan Arabia into a well-organised powerful nation that evolved into one of the greatest empires in history, with outstanding contributions in the fields of science, medicine, technique, etc..
Whereas first order change might not last forever or must be persistently accompanied by measures of readjustment, second-order change can last forever. Second order change is a situation of radical change of view which in spirituality is attributed to he divine. It sciences however it can be considered an accidental transformation. In an atheist society it can be analysed and apprehended with some theories of psychology but among believers it is consider as the work of God.
Second-order change appears to be uncontrollable by humans or the subjects involved and will last long. It may happen after a long mental labour or a long period of meditation but it appears as a quantum jump. In the theological sense it is an act of the grace of God. Many scientists have been challenged with it as it appears in a illogical and unpredictable way but persists.
Religiosity does not guarantee the success of change, but it depends on the ability of the subject to implement the teachings. Only the power of God can lead to real change .Religious belief is not the only prerequisite for change, but the major long lasting transformations of human societies where done wit the influence of spiritual leadership. That is perhaps the reason why in the top of the most influential people in history, there will always be spiritual leaders.
