A New Creature in Christ

I recently started reading Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, and I was impressed by the description of Konstantin Levin when he returned to his home in the country after his marriage proposal was rejected by Kitty in Moscow. He was at first crushed by the rejection, but as he made the journey back to his own place “he began to see what had happened to him in quite a different light. He felt himself, and did not want to be anyone else. All he wanted now was to be better than before. In the first place he resolved that from that day he would give up hoping for any extraordinary happiness, such as marriage must have given him, and consequently he would not so disdain what he really had…. With a resolute feeling of hope in a new, better life, he reached home.” He was determined to be a better person and planned how he would care for his struggling brother more diligently, give of his possessions to help others, and live with less luxury. After he arrived, though, the doubts set in: “There came over him for an instant a doubt of the possibility of arranging the new life, of which he had been dreaming on the road. All these traces of his life seemed to clutch him, and to say to him: ‘No, you’re not going to get away from us, and you’re not going to be different, but you’re going to be the same as you’ve always been; with doubts, everlasting dissatisfaction with yourself, vain efforts to amend, and falls, and everlasting expectation, of a happiness which you won’t get, and which isn’t possible for you.’” That is certainly what the adversary would always have us believe, that change is not really possible and we can’t overcome weakness and sin and become better through Christ. But the novel continues, “This the things said to him, but another voice in his heart was telling him that he must not fall under the sway of the past, and that one can do anything with oneself.” This is the voice that the Savior would have us listen to. We can break away from past habits and sins, whether small or large, and become “a new creature” in Christ as Paul said (2 Corinthians 5:17). Repentance would not be at the center of the gospel if true change was not possible.

Of course, change is usually hard, and breaking habits and developing new ones usually takes great effort and time. But these words of King Limhi give me hope: “O ye, my people, lift up your heads and be comforted; for behold, the time is at hand, or is not far distant, when we shall no longer be in subjection to our enemies, notwithstanding our many strugglings, which have been in vain; yet I trust there remaineth an effectual struggle to be made.” Despite the fact that they had been defeated by their enemies multiple times, he still believed that they would overcome. The key is in his next words: “Therefore, lift up your heads, and rejoice, and put your trust in God, in that God who was the God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob; and also, that God who brought the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt, and caused that they should walk through the Red Sea on dry ground, and fed them with manna that they might not perish in the wilderness; and many more things did he do for them” (Mosiah 7:18-19). It is easy to feel that in whatever thing we are struggling with, change and progress are not possible. Many of his people surely felt that things were hopeless because they had tried so hard to be free of the Lamanites but to no avail. But King Limhi encouraged them to trust in God, and the God of Israel who could lead the children of Israel across the Red Sea on dry ground could deliver them from bondage. And He can surely deliver us from our bad habits and sins as we seek to repent and put our trust in Him. We must never lose hope that there is an “effectual struggle” to be made, believing that we “must not fall under the sway of the past, and that one can do anything with oneself.”