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.

I was scrolling through Facebook this morning and saw a post from a friend of mine paying tribute to her father.  Today is his birthday, and she wrote how she could not put into words the love, admiration and honor she has for him; how he’d always been there for her, and that he was a heroic example of husband, father, grandfather and friend.  I know that when my friend hears that God is our Father, she has no trouble picturing Him as the loving presence that He is.

Not everyone has so easy a time doing that.

Our culture has drifted such that an intact wholesome family is more the exception than the norm.   And the tragedy of that is that so many children are growing up with a skewed perspective of what a father is.  No wonder, if theirs only sees them sporadically, or has abandoned them altogether.

My “dad” abandoned me. Or maybe he never even knew I existed.  You see, he was a 16 year old kid who impregnated his even younger girlfriend.  At least that’s what I’ve been told.  All I know is that she was staying in a facility for unwed mothers until I was born, and then they walked away.

And so, I am an adopted child.  I stayed in the orphanage for about three months, until my parents took me home.  And while I always knew I was adopted, it was never an issue. My mom was my mom and my dad was my dad.  My dad provided for me, guided me, taught me and disciplined me just as if I were carrying his DNA.  As a child, he was my hero, and I was definitely a Daddy’s girl.  He taught me the love of the outdoors, how to ride and care for a horse, how to take a fall, and how to get back in the saddle after I had done so. He taught me how to drive and how to hold a door open for someone; how to be generous and how a stranger was just a friend to whom you hadn’t yet spoken.  There was nothing my father couldn’t do.  There was nothing he couldn’t fix.  He was not perfect, for he was but a man, but I never doubted his great love for me.  And when he died a little over a year ago, everything he had was mine.  I was his heir—what he owned, I owned.  The fact that I was his adopted daughter meant nothing; it’s as if the adjective didn’t even exist—I WAS His daughter.

So not only do I have a great example of a father, I have an inside track on what it means to be an adopted child.  I wasn’t just handed to my father, he chose me. He sought me out, and picked me.

Me.

God does too.  The Bible tells us that God has adopted us as His very own offspring.

He chose us in him before the foundation of the world…. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will —Ephesians 1:4-5

What does it mean to adopt? To take by choice into a relationship, especially to take voluntarily; to choose or take as one’s own–make one’s own by selection or assent.  And what does assent mean? To agree to something, especially after thoughtful consideration.

Thoughtful consideration.  Adopting us was not God’s plan B—it was His intent from the beginning.

He predestined. The Message version says that “Long before he laid down earth’s foundations, he had us in mind.”

How comforting it is to know that even though an earthly father can abandon us and leave us feeling worthless and unwanted, that the Creator of the Universe planned us. Planned ME. Desired ME and He knit me together in my mother’s young womb. Those kids may not have wanted me, but HE did. And He did so with purpose.  Ephesians goes on to say in the second chapter that we are “God’s handiwork” and that were created to do good works, “which God prepared in advance for us to do.”  In advance.  We are not an afterthought.

My birth parents did not plan me.  To them I was a mistake.  But to God, I am His beautiful creation, hand-made for the purpose of His glory.  Makes it a little hard to feel worthless under those circumstances.

As God’s adopted child—just as with my earthly adoptive dad—everything that is His is mine.  The difference is that I don’t have to wait for death to take possession of it.  Everything God is, everything He has to offer—His grace, His mercy, His love, patience, goodness and peace—it’s all mine.  Right now.  It is mine because I am His.

As the song says, He is a good, good Father.  Anyone who has trouble reconciling God as their father may not have had the best example of one here on earth.  But we cannot form our opinion of a perfect God based on the actions of an imperfect man. Men are flawed.

Our God is not.

If you have a child, think of how you felt when you first held him.  That indescribable joy. The overwhelming emotion.  The realization that you didn’t even know that such love existed—remember that feeling?  That’s how God feels about YOU. And so much more.  All the time.  YOU are His child.

And He is a good, good Father.

My nephew is a sports fanatic. He will watch any kind of sport, but his true love is football. And as many fanatical fans do, he has his favorite team.  And when his favorite team is playing he can be, well, passionate is probably the word. In the old days, his entire weekend would be scheduled around the television—he had to see his team play from kick-off to the final whistle.

Luckily for him, about the time the wife and kids came along, so did the invention of the DVR—he can watch his precious game in its entirety any time he wants to.  The problem is, he insists on not knowing anything about the game until he watches it for himself; we can’t text him about the game, nor can we dine in any restaurant that may have it on or, even another game on that may have the little scrolling ticker at the bottom of the screen with all the scores.

He is adamant. He doesn’t want to know the outcome. Because knowing the outcome affects the way he experiences the game.

And as much as we like to give him grief about this, I must admit, I’m kind of that way too.  If I attend the late service at church, the game is well under way by the time I get back home.  I have to be careful even to have the volume down lest I hear the score before I can get the DVR to start playing.  Usually, it works.

But sometimes, it doesn’t.  Especially if I thoughtlessly check Facebook, and see the posts from folks who have seen the end of the game when I am only in the first quarter.

That happened recently, and I found out that my team had won the game. It was a nail-biter, with the lead changing 4 times in the final minutes of the game.  Any fan knows that those kinds of games have your emotions on a roller coaster right up until the end.

Except that as I watched it, I knew the end.   Knowing the outcome, that seemingly devastating fumble had lost its sting.  That kick-off return by the opposing team for a touchdown didn’t cause the doubt and fear it would have, had I not known the end result.

I think life is a lot like that football game, except most of us live it as though we have forgotten the outcome. As followers of Jesus, we know Who wins in the end, yet we become disheartened at every fumble.  An unjustly thrown flag can cause us to doubt and struggle.  And when the other team scores, we can willingly go sit on the bench and watch from the safety of the sidelines.

Every football game has its share of interceptions, missed tackles, and lousy calls—that’s just the nature of the game.  And life is full of them too. Jesus tells us in John 16:33 that we are to expect them.

In this world, you will have trouble.

But He also tells us the ending of the game.

But take heart! I have overcome the world.

When we are playing on God’s team, the game goes a little differently; even our mistakes are used to our advantage. When’s the last time you were grateful for a forced punt?  Probably never.  But God—oh , how I love those two words—but God will take every miscue, every time you stepped off-sides, and every time someone ‘held’ you and cause it to enhance your game.  Imagine putting points on the board for every time you ran out of bounds.

And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose –Rom 8:28

So, each morning as we put on our uniform and head out on the playing field of life, let us continually strive to move the ball forward, never taking our eyes off the goal. Let us not be distracted by the penalty flags, or intimidated by the size of the opposing team’s players.  But instead, might we invite God into our huddle, and allow Him to call the plays.

By doing that, we will play the best game of our life.