Change for the better

is what colleagues were talking about. How a person after attending some course, changed for the better. Self awareness courses to understand yourself better and hence changes happen thereafter, where marriages are closer, others see the benefits and ask how to, the person's priorities changed as well (maybe become nicer which is subjective), etc.

Sounds so much like how God transforms our lives when we get to know Jesus, but is it really the same?

Do people really want to be transformed? Do they really want change in their lives? Or only when severe/devasting events happen, then change happens in us? But there're still those times when even after something terrible happens and recovery happens, all seems to be forgotten and your old self just comes back like nothing really did happen?

But what makes people gauge that the effect of change in a person is better? Is it a personal gauge? It may differ from person to person (eg, friends may think it's good, but family don't think so), right? And how God truly transforms us, our minds, our lives, opens our ears and reveals himself to us in the person and work of his son, Jesus Christ, and everything culminating for us to all be like Jesus, what does that mean then? The benchmark is God's alone, not differing between persons, and all for his glory and his purposes since he created us and as we return to dust in the end, having been impacted and having impacted people around us. It's relationships in the end which God had established with us from the beginning....thank you Lord for taking the initiative to reconcile us back to you.