A Pace of Change

Reclined back in my chair fully satiated, I watched while the server walked around our table of eight and collected the little silver trays with varying amounts of cash placed upon them.  “No change,” said the friend on my right.  “I don’t want change,” said the one next to her. “Me neither,” interjected the next one as he quickly returned to his conversation.  And so it went, all the way around the table one by one my friends lifted their voices, declining the offer of change.

And as listened, I heard  the voices of so many today screaming out for things to stay just the way they are. “No change…I don’t want any change… Keep the change.”  Of course, these voices are not speaking about money–they are begging for their circumstances to remain status quo. A chorus of  “I’m perfectly OK where I’m at.”  So what is it about change that causes us to resist at all cost?

Change hurts. It makes us uncomfortable. It takes effort. Even when the change is for our good, we often will linger in our present situation simply because it is familiar.

About a year ago, I had to get a new computer.  I had needed one for at least two years, but I kept putting off the purchase.  Not only would a new computer cost me money, it would cost me time and effort.  A lot of effort, because since they no longer sell computers loaded with Windows XP (yes, you read that correctly) I would have to learn an entirely new operating system, file management, and figure out where they’d moved the cut and the paste buttons. Not to mention I would have to physically disassemble my current computer, deal with the dust and debris that exists in places you never go, and spend days transferring files and re-loading programs.  Ugh. It was just too much to think about.

So I spent the better part of a year dealing with slow connection and programs that opened more slowly than Grandma at Christmas.  It was inefficient, it was frustrating, but it was what I knew.

And then came the inevitable crash.  The one from which there was no recovery. And I was forced to walk through all those dreaded steps to discard the old, and bring in the new.  It was physically demanding—after all the new system has two hard drives, both about 17 terabytes (so that I won’t have to change computers anytime soon). I don’t know what terabytes are, but I know they weigh a lot.  The new tower was much larger than the old, so furniture had to be moved and rearranged in order to accommodate it. And then I started to load all my programs onto the new system.  I’m just OCD enough to have all the original program CDs, so one by one I began load them.  Only, some of them would not load; it seems that some things that worked on Windows XP were not compatible with the change,  This was rather disconcerting, because these are things I worked with on a daily basis, and how was I now supposed to accomplish my everyday tasks?  After lamenting the loss, I realized I had to leave some things behind in order to continue with the new system.

I really, really missed my old system.  For about a minute.  Just long enough to see the speed and efficiency with which this new computer responded.  I was beyond amazed.  My old computer would burn a DVD, but I had to start the process as I retired for the night and let it work for several hours. It was usually done by the time I awoke the next morning.

But this new computer?  Oh my goodness.  I began the burn process and then started to bed, only to get curious about 10 minutes later, so I  walked over to check the progress.  It was done. Done! I had not even realized the possibility for such speed even existed. And so, in my reluctance to make the effort necessary for change, I had settled.

And so often it is with change–on the other side of it, it was all worth it.  But the process is like an uphill climb.  And most of us spend the climb looking back down toward the valley, wishing we were back there in the comfort of the familiar.  So what if it’s a dead-end job?  The climb is too steep.  Who cares if the boyfriend doesn’t always treat me with respect?  At least I know my way around the valley.

For those of us walking with God, change is inevitable.  For without change, there is no growth. God is much more concerned with your character than with your comfort and so He will direct you and challenge you with things you never imagined yourself doing.  But see, God knows what’s on the other side of that peak–while we are making the climb, He is just leading us to a higher elevation. The higher we go, the more our perspective changes.

The Israelites were following God as they made their exodus out of Egypt.  He provided a cloud by day, and pillar of fire by night.  Wherever the cloud set down, they set up camp and stayed there until the cloud moved again.  It didn’t matter if they had become comfortable in their current place, when God said it was time to change, they moved.

At the command of the LORD they camped, and at the command of the LORD they set out – Num 9:23

If you are walking with God and the scene never changes, then you are on a treadmill; you might burn some calories, but you aren’t moving forward. God loves you where you are, but He loves you too much to leave you there. He is constantly doing a new thing in us, but often we become so complacent in our surroundings that we don’t recognize Him in the situation. Or we are too busy murmuring and complaining about our discomfort to recognize the comfort of His outstretched arms.

See, I am doing a new thing!  Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?  I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland — Isaiah 43:19

God’s ways are always better than our own.He can open doors we never even saw and straighten paths that we have made crooked.

My new computer is so much more efficient, the downloads so fast and the response time so quick, that it took no time before I was saying how much I loved this new system, and asking myself why in the world I had waited so long to make the change. I couldn’t even tell you now the names of the programs that I had so fretted over the thought of leaving behind.

And so it is with God. Any time He asks you to put something down, it is only because He has something so much better of which He wants you to take hold.  When He asks you to leave something behind, it is because He has something better up ahead.

Trusting God is always worth the effort.

Perhaps you should try it for a change.