HOPE Chapel

Many people live in a conundrum. They don't like change, but they want change. Maybe it's fear. Maybe it's inscurity. Maybe it's just that we are too comfortable. Yet in our comfort we complain and sometimes as "spiritual people" we grow numb, become dull, or feel dry. There is a missing vitality to our lives.

Often when that happens people look to something or someone to spice things up. Change is in order - a new toy, a new job, a new house, a new church, a new spouse, a new religion. They try to recapture the "feel" of the past. But what happens if the feel of the past isn't what will revive us? 

I read a Scripture passage recently that made me wonder if I, we, look in the wrong places for that missing vitality.    Isaiah 43:18-19 "Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.

Israel was at a dry place, distant from God, and separated from His blessings. They longed for what they had before; they craved for the past - "Maybe if we just change things so they're back to what they were before...."  God, however, wasn't going to re-vitalize them by rewinding the tape. He was doing something new and different. He would bring vitality and life to the most dry of places through something new ... and His challenge to them was to see it, look for it, perceive it. 

• Instead of trying to orchestrate change on our own, maybe we need to perceive what God wants to do in our lives.
• Instead of trying to mimic the feelings of the past, maybe we need to grasp the new feelings & experiences God has for us.
• Instead of holding onto the comforts of the past, maybe we need to embrace the changes God is bringing.

We may not like change. We may want change. Either way, we must make sure it's God's change. We do that by seeking Him daily in an ongoing personal relationship.