An Inkling
“Things are changing!” “And you were expecting….?”Such is the answer I can imagine God giving to our complaints about change. Oh, you say you don’t complain about change? Listen carefully to your own prayers. If yours are like mine, many of your requests have as their subtext a basic resistance to change. As we ask God for this or that, our urgency often arises not from a desire to see things better than they are, but from a deep-seated desire to avoid change. And from what I can tell from the scripture, God is not inclined to grant such requests.
We have plenty of change about which to pray. Our families change as children grow and elders die. The careful plans we make for our financial security are shaken by erratic markets and world events. Our health changes. Our circle of friends changes. The patterns of our life together at St. Giles change. The world scene is rapidly changing. And on and on. Thus our prayers of alarm to God.
Because of our knee-jerk resistance to change, we must remind ourselves why the Lord uses change in our lives. I once heard John Huffman offer this simple seven point reminder:
- Healthy things grow.
- Growing things change.
- Change challenges us.
- Challenge forces us to trust God.
- Trust leads to obedience.
- Obedience makes us healthy.
- Healthy things grow.
Change in itself is not good news. But change guided by the Constant One, whose love and wisdom direct us toward growth, is good news indeed! Count it an adventure! I thank God for your partnership as we together see what God has next for us.
Ready or not….
Keith
