The Discomfort of Change Can Bring the Maturity of Peace
Tis the season of Back to School stress!! In the frenzy of emptying our bank account and filling our shopping carts with binders, folders, notebooks, glue, pencils and pens not to mention the shopping demands of the new back to school attire shoes, back packs and clothes for each of our children and you have the formula that can make any mom or dad’s head spin. Now throw into the mix the number of orientations and meet the teacher nights and the fall sport practice demands and not only is your mind and budget overwhelmed but your calendar is overwhelmed too. As that flies into the early morning wake ups, car pulls, packed lunches, the endless stack of forms to sign, and the daily grind of routine, you might find yourself longing to have the slowness of the summer schedule back.
I personally hate change. I always have. I like the comfort-ability and predictability of sameness. I was raised that way. My mom loved to be home, loved living a mile from the farm she was raised on, and after gleefully returning back to her hometown after a two year job took us away she bought us back the exact same house we’d left behind. I got the message loud and clear keeping things the same is good and safe. However as I’ve journeyed through life with God, I’m not sure He has the same priority. I don’t think He’s into safe and predictable, it doesn’t seem to increase our faith or need of Him, like a good change does. When new seasons of life come whether it’s back to school, changing schools, a move to a new town or neighborhood, a new job, a new baby, a new marriage, or just a new schedule, our need for God to give us wisdom and strength will also come. With new seasons come new experiences and with new experiences come new ways of needing and knowing Jesus. Knowing Jesus in all kinds of seasons and places and ways leads us to maturity.
God encourages us with these promises in 2 Peter 1:2, “May God give you more and more grace and peace as you grow in your knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord.” The Message translation words it this way, “Grace and peace to you many times over as you deepen your experience with God.” The Greek word used in this passage, “knowledge” describes not merely intellectual terms but includes experiential knowledge of God. The dictionary definition of “know” also speaks to this, “to understand from experience”. The more experiences we walk with God through the more we know him personally and the more we walk in peace.
Sometimes I can make the Christian life really complicated. I can make it about doing a thousand things the “right” way or the perfect way. When I’m living this way I’m usually also worn out, overwhelmed, stressed out and anxious. I’m over complicating what God says pleases him.
“Everything that goes into a life of pleasing God has been miraculously given to us by getting to know, personally and intimately, the one who invited us to God”
2 Pet 1:3 MSG.
That first line is the cry of my heart to live “a life of pleasing God”, but I turn that into doing and accomplishing a long list of things instead of the equation set up for us in this verse:
A life pleasing to God = Getting to know Jesus.
I didn’t earn this privilege through hard work, striving, grit or elbow grease as the scripture says it was “given to us”. My work in living a life pleasing to God is about receiving and knowing personally and experientially that which He freely gives.
As life brings with it the uncertainty of change, may it draw us deeper in our experience with God and may we know him in greater ways. May the cry of our heart in the changing of seasons be, “God, what do you want to reveal about Yourself in this place? What new truth are you waiting to show me? How can I know you more in this season?”
2017/08/17 at 8:11 pm