I was recently in a meeting where someone pushed back their chair and said exasperatedly, “I just can’t take any more change.” Looking around the room, heads nodded in agreement. The world is changing at breakneck speed and it can be exhausting and disorienting. It can also make us pine nostalgically for the past and even try to reinvent it, forgetting that it is nearly impossible to recapture what was because of all that has transpired, all the ways we and those around us have grown and changed.
Change happens. The Bible is full of stories of change: of individuals
growing and changing (even changing their names!), of whole communities
changing in response to their situation, providing us with inspiration as we
face change in our own lives. God speaks through the prophet Isaiah: “See, I am
doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?”—a reminder that
faith that is vital grows in response to a God who continues to create.
I have been on the road for several weeks and when I finally
returned home, I was surprised to find lilacs in bloom, green grass, and LOTS
of weeds. So much had changed in such a short time, a reminder to me that there
is so much beauty waiting to be born and seeking to blossom. To face the
crossroads of change is an inevitable task of every human being. To understand it
as moving from miracle to miracle is a choice.
As you move through the changes of your life, may you seek
the miracles of new life, of beauty, of possibilities waiting to unfold before and
within you. God is doing a new thing, can you not perceive it?
