For
the
28 years that I have been in Estevan, I have used the exact same
mechanical pencil
to write my sermons. When
I play squash,
I use the lock that I used in high school gym class. I have a hair brush that I
bought in grade 7
(sadly, I don’t need it much these days).
I have lived in the same house for 20 years and I have been
married to
Sara for almost 25 years. Every
Christmas
eve, since I was 10 years old, I have watched the black and white
version of “A
Christmas Carol”. Clearly,
I am not someone
who likes change!
However,
the past few years have brought a lot of changes to my life and to
the lives of
those around me. Here are
some basic,
but important, lessons that I have learned.
1. Change is inevitable. Everybody changes all the
time! If you do not
believe me, look in the mirror. Children
grow up. People move or
pass away and it all goes by very
quickly. “What is your
life? You are a mist that
appears for a little while
and then vanishes” (James 4:14). Nothing
here is permanent. We are
foolish to act
otherwise.
2. God commands us to change. Jesus said, “Unless you
change and become
like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven”
(Matthew 18:3).
Ephesians 4:22-24 tells us
to take off
our old selves and put on our new selves. Growth is not only expected, it
is
required! As Bob Goff
says, “We cannot
be new creations if everything stays the same”.
3.
Change teaches lessons that can be learned no other way. I did not understand what it
was like to have
your kids grow up and leave home, until it happened. I did not know how it felt to
have a loved
one deal with cancer, until it happened.
When things change, we can become bitter, or we can be
teachable. Paul said that
he learned to comfort others
because he experienced God’s comfort when trouble came (2
Corinthians 1:3-4). If we
learn something, then the experience becomes
useful.
I am still not a
big fan of
change, but I manage it better when I remember that God can use it
to make me
more like himself.
“Listen,
I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be
changed — in a
flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the
trumpet will
sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be
changed” (1 Corinthians
15:51-52).
Comments