Change

I sat and thought of an unusual occurrence amid all the rainy days here in Louisville the last week. Not to long ago I was greeted through the back door by a loud but muffled announcement in 3 year old English from a dirty sand box covered little boy, "Daddy, I wanna stay OUTside!" With a stomp of the foot and a matter of fact frown my son's position had been established to which, as a strong and firm father, I responded, 'Well your mother said to come in and change clothes. She will get us both if you don't." "I don't' want to change," he said with a puppy dog face, knowing that it was going to happen.

I don't want to change either most of the time. This may come as a surprise to some seeing that I have lived in 10 different residences in the past 8 years, worked 8 jobs in that same time, and have attended 3 different schools and five different churches. Still yet, one thing has remained constant, God's leading in my and my family's life. What a journey and what a future. There is really no certainty about what tomorrow will bring or where tomorrow will take me, yet one thing remains, God will be leading.

Personally, the reason I don't like change is because I often attach situations to God, rather than God to situations. I see events for God rather than God in events. The difference has always been allowing God to be the constant and the events as peripheral. But, certainly I fail, instead seeing events and people as constant.

People change. Events change. Friends come. Friends go. Life is easy. Life is hard. But the words of Jim Elliot ring true. "Wherever you are be all there. Live to the hilt every situation you believe to be the will of God."

Do not be paralyzed by fear. For as my pastor says often, "You worship what you fear." Instead be hopeful and ever ready to recognize and take part in what God is doing in and around you. You never know what He has up his sleeve when it comes to his glory, except that it will glorify His Son, and that it requires your involvement.

If God is changing you or your surroundings right now, trust His work. Do not mistake what has been and what will be for who is.