Growing and Changing

    No longer will my wife or I be driving our daughter to the big Baptist church in town for preschool.  Next year she will join her brother in elementary school, where she will be a Kindergartner and he will be in Fifth grade.  At least there will be one year where he can help acclimate her to the next step of schooling.  Our other son will be in Seventh grade next year, which means that the next year, as the younger son will have helped his younger sister to understand the change, so the older son will do the same for his brother.

    This week ended the school year and today begins summer for my family, and as the day settles I find myself filled with all kinds of thoughts and emotions.  Memories ranging from when they were just bundles in my arms to a sense of aging for them and for me.  Thoughts range from how far they have come to a sense of apprehension at the learning which will take place as the lessons of life are dispensed to each of them.

    Then there is the recognition that I am not alone.  Yes, my wife and extended family is in this with me, and so are the parents around us.  As I delve deeper, I am reminded that this is nothing new.  That generations have had to deal with this, and they survived.

    Don’t get me wrong, this is not a bad thing, and I’m not freaking out about these changes from year to year, but it does make one stop to think about life.  It makes one carry out a series of internal assessments, raises questions, and positions one to simply be more aware of what life is about and how one is living daily.  It makes one reflect upon change.

    One of my favorite stories in the Bible is the story of Jesus healing the man at the Sheep Gate (John 5: 1-11), where there was a natural spring that would intermittently be stirred by a current.  The man

had been an invalid for 38 years, and everyday he would make his way to that pool because legend said that, if one were the first one in the pool when that water was stirred, they would be healed of their infirmity.  The man was an invalid, unable to walk very well, and every time he tried to get in at the water’s stirring, someone would butt in front of him.  Jesus learns about this man, and he asks the man, “Do you want to get well?”
    The man replies, “I’ve tried, but no one will help me.”  To which Jesus said, “Pick up your mat and walk,” and the man did.  The healing itself is extraordinary, but what is most powerful in the story is that the man said “yes.” 
    Now you may think that’s kind of odd.  After all, isn’t it a good thing for the man to be able to walk, to which I reply, “Yes.”  But the ramifications for saying “yes” are huge.  This is a man who only knows a begging life.  He’s only known being an invalid.  He only knows relying upon others, and if he was healed, then he’d have to change.  His whole world would change, and everything would be different.
    Wow!  That’s huge.  I wonder how I’d respond.  In fact, there are many times when I, and all of us choose NOT to go through the change.  It can feel like it’s just too difficult.

    We live in a world that, on the one hand lives for change, while at the same time struggles with the changes all around us.  From technology to culture, change is evident, and we see and feel the impact of this in everything.  In such a world it is easy to get caught up in the change and simply miss out on the little things, and yet the nostalgic part of us recognizes how important the little things are.

    This is the reason during this season of graduations and end of school, we feel the change.  Its ramifications and implications are far reaching, and if we’re not careful they can make us depressed and/or feel lost.  And yet, there is one constant that never changes, in the middle of the change is God.
    I love this Bible story because it is a challenge to us that, if we trust Jesus, then everything will change.  It’s scary, and we feel helpless in it, but at the same time it is also freeing, for it means that we are no longer in charge.  It means that, despite the changes, Jesus is there making things well.  It means that we can give up trying to control everything, worrying about what we cannot change, and seeking our way rather than God’s way.   
    God’s there in the midst of my aging children and my aging self.  God’s there in the midst of friends who are moving away and those who are beginning new journeys.  God is there in the grief of loss, and in the pain of divorce.  God is wherever there is change, because God is the One that transforms all things into hope and new life.

Where do you need to be changed?  Pray for the courage to trust and live into God’s gift of new life.