January 6, 2015. A new week. A new month. A new year. The old calendar has been placed in the recycle bin. The new one sits on my desk waiting to be covered in ink and pencil.
Change. Out with the old, in with the new.
One of my favorite songs in the early 1970s was David Bowie’s, “Changes”. Ch-ch-ch-ch-
changes. The song talked about turning and facing the strange changes we go through. While I’ve certainly been through an abundance of changes in my life, not all were strange. Some were of the everyday normal variety, like transitioning from elementary school to junior high, junior high to high, and finally college.
Some changes I saw coming and prepared for. Others hit without warning and left me scrambling to regain my equilibrium. Some changes were more than welcome. Some were dreaded. I would have been fine if they’d never occurred. Thank you very much.
Merriam Webster online dictionary defines change as to become different, to make (someone or something) different, to become something else. Change alters. It transforms. Replaces. Switches and shifts. Change exchanges one thing for another. It is transition. Modification. People change when they pass from one phase to another. Change also occurs when something passes from the possession of one owner to another.
One thing about changes…you have to walk away from something before you can walk toward something else. You can’t say whether what you are walking toward will be better or worse than where you’ve been, all you can say is it will be different.
In the movie, “Paint Your Wagon”, a Mormon is spurred on by one of his wives to auction off his other wife to the highest bidder. They could use the extra money, after all. The wife to be sold was all for it. Believing it incredulous his wife could be all right with the idea, the husband said something like, “But you don’t know what you’ll get.” To which she replied, “But I know what I’ve had.”
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes.
We may not know what we’ll get, but we know the One who does, and we can be confident He is in control. God will never leave or forsake us, no matter what change we end up with.
Amen?
Like me, have you seen God’s hand at work in the middle of your changes after the fact, and said, “Of course!”? Does it make it easier to step toward and walk away, knowing He is in control?
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