Change

There is a subject we are all familiar with. This will NOT be a rundown or an attack on anyone especially our President-Elect; he has been elected and needs our prayers along with all those he appoints to his Cabinet. I challenge you, if you haven’t already, to begin praying for the decisions that will be made concerning us as Americans and the people of the entire world. The whole way through the 2008 Election we’ve heard many things, both sides of the ticket claimed they could bring change. Some of the things they talked of changing were disturbing and others not so much. It really got me thinking about change. In essence change in inevitable. When a baby is born it must change or it will die. The baby cannot just be, it must eat and it must grow. As the baby grows it learns things, which is all part of change. On the other end of life the same happens even though someone is in a comma and life as they know it stops but everything around them and their body still changes moment by moment. I am no longer the same as I was when I began this article. Life changes; it changes us and those around us.

As you accept Christ and his gift of salvation your life changes as well. Scripture says in 2 Corinthians 5:17 that “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old is gone, the new has come!” When you accept him as your Savior you are no longer the same as you were before. The sin that stained your life is now gone and you are clean and you shine with the radiance of God. Each new moment or experience changes you into the person God has planned out just for you. Sometimes we have an idea that we think is best for our lives or family and we pray that God would help us to achieve this idea. Then we find ourselves with a different path before us and wonder was God even listening to the prayers we previously prayed? Sure he was, but he knows what our future holds and changes our direction accordingly if we are willing to trust and obey his decision for our life. Sometimes we come to decision making time knowing what God wants for us but we’d rather see what happens with the other option and he allows us to make that choice on our own. Not everyone likes or accepts change with an open heart, but change is everywhere. Your ideas change, your desires change, the leaves change, seasons change, our bodies change; we get lines and wrinkles, gray hair, shorter with age, constantly the universe changes, the solar system changes by God’s command. If you have lived a holy life totally sold out to Christ you will be changed. I Corinthians 15:50-52 says; “I declare to you brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I tell you a mystery: we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed – in a flash, in a twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable and we will be changed.” One thing that doesn’t change is God. He is unchanging as James 1:17 states; “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.”

There is a song by Patty Loveless titled, “How Can I Help You Say Goodbye” and when I think about change that song always comes to mind. I guess because the first verse I actually experienced as the song was on the radio. It talks of a girl moving and saying goodbye to her friend and the little girl moving asks again why they have to leave. I moved as an adult, married with children, to Georgia from Kentucky in 1994 and left behind my best friend, Becky. I remember the pain to this very day of having to say goodbye and still can feel it as deep and painful as it was just happening. Did I know what my life was going to be like here in Georgia? No, but it was a move that had to be made. Did I want to say goodbye? No, but it was something that was inevitable, we were military and one of us was going leave at one time or another, it just happened my families orders came first. I can honestly say that had we not come to Georgia I don’t believe I would be spiritually where I am today. God helps us to say goodbye and also deal with change.

In life we must accept change. Sometimes change is good and easy but other times it’s hard and it hurts, thank goodness we have God that is unchanging and loves us more than any other creation. We are welcome and encouraged to go to him for thanksgiving of the easier times or to go to when our load is too much for us to carry, either way he is there for us and totally unchanged!

God bless…