Change

Change. It happens.  Not all at once, not all of a sudden, but gradually, over days, weeks, months, and years.  Looking back over the last 5 years, I can see a lot of gradual changes have taken place.  In my community, in my friends, in my family, and in my myself, there has been change. Some of these changes have been small and some have been large, some have been good changes, and some have been decidedly bad changes.

What do you do when something changes for the worse?  When we undergo a change that benefits us, it seems natural for us to thank and worship God for it, and to revel in the change.  These good changes are so easy to understand.  In these sort of changes it is immediately apparent to us what God is doing in us through that change, and we therefore feel loved and included in the great plan.   However, when something changes for the worse, our tendency is to do the opposite...we complain to God and rage on about how unfair it is that this, whatever 'this' may be, is happening to us.   This is, of course, a natural human tendency.  When something causes us, or someone close to us, pain, we want it to stop, to end, to leave and to never come back. We find it positively mind-boggling that anything painful could possibly be part of God's plan for our lives.

Unfortunately, while a natural tendency, this is a very wrong way to look at it.  Suffering has always been part of the Christian life, and it is in fact, on this earth at least, meant to be a part of it.  This is not to say that the Christian life is a constant vale of tears, not at all!  To live as a Christian is to live with the only true hope that there is to find in this whole earth, and that brings Christians a greater joy than can be expressed or imagined.  But the Christian life does come with trials, and these trials are meant to refine us for the glory of our God.  1 Peter 1:6-8 says this: 'In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire —may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy.'
  
As I look at my life right now, there are many changes that have occurred and are yet occurring. Some of these changes are very painful, for myself and especially for those close to me.  But I have come to realize that as a child of the most High King, I have nothing to fear.  As unbearable as the present may sometimes seem, as uncertain as the future may be, I stand firm in the confidence that my Heavenly Father will walk by my side and lead me down a path that he has specifically chosen for me.  There will be obstacles on the road, I know that.  I know that I will walk through refining fires that may seem close to destroying me, but I also know that my Lord is love, and as his child, I can stand in the knowledge that just as he made three men capable of standing in a furnace heated to 7 times its normal heat and emerging unscathed, so he will make me capable of bearing the heat of whatever refining fires await me.  And I know that at the end of that path, I will come into glory fully refined, pure, and beautiful in the eyes of my savior.