Embracing Change: The Spiritual Seasons of Life
Gen. 8:22 While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.
Seasons; they come and go like clockwork. The one thing that we can predict based upon this scripture is that seasons will change with time. It is something we should know early in our walk with the Lord, but often something we forget to factor in. Let me explain. Much to our demise, we can quickly adapt to a certain predictable, comfortable pattern of religious activities and supportive environments that soon become for us what they were never meant to be; permanent fixtures.
For example, some people get so attached to a particular speaker, or a specific church building, or a certain list of good habits, that they soon feel as if anything outside of those defining mechanisms in their life cannot and must not be God’s will for them. Think about it like this; we would never expect a toddler to be so attached to his diapers that he would decide to keep wearing them all the way into full manhood. Why? Because the diaper was only needed for a particular season in the growth and development of that child; once he comes to a new level of maturity, he must move on to the next level of growth, leaving some things behind, and reaching forth to those things which are before.
One constant remains in his development; change! One of the keys to success in our journey with God is the ability to be flexible as things, people, and places around us change. To be flexible is to be able to make adjustments along the way. You cannot be so rigid in your approach to life that you are not willing to change and grow in the Grace of God; otherwise, you become an old wine skin that will not be able to hold the new wine of God’s revelation in your life.
Change is never comfortable, but the right kind of change is always better! Try as you may, you cannot deny that change is eminent. Do not get so stuck in the past that you become virtually ineffective and incapable of receiving a new assignment with a fresh anointing from the Lord. I am not speaking of switching from truth to error; I am simply speaking of becoming so pliable in the hands of the Lord that He could trust you to serve Him and His Word in any environment He sends you to without becoming so rigidly opposed to others that you can’t serve.
~ Pastor Gary Caudill
Seasons; they come and go like clockwork. The one thing that we can predict based upon this scripture is that seasons will change with time. It is something we should know early in our walk with the Lord, but often something we forget to factor in. Let me explain. Much to our demise, we can quickly adapt to a certain predictable, comfortable pattern of religious activities and supportive environments that soon become for us what they were never meant to be; permanent fixtures.
For example, some people get so attached to a particular speaker, or a specific church building, or a certain list of good habits, that they soon feel as if anything outside of those defining mechanisms in their life cannot and must not be God’s will for them. Think about it like this; we would never expect a toddler to be so attached to his diapers that he would decide to keep wearing them all the way into full manhood. Why? Because the diaper was only needed for a particular season in the growth and development of that child; once he comes to a new level of maturity, he must move on to the next level of growth, leaving some things behind, and reaching forth to those things which are before.
One constant remains in his development; change! One of the keys to success in our journey with God is the ability to be flexible as things, people, and places around us change. To be flexible is to be able to make adjustments along the way. You cannot be so rigid in your approach to life that you are not willing to change and grow in the Grace of God; otherwise, you become an old wine skin that will not be able to hold the new wine of God’s revelation in your life.
Change is never comfortable, but the right kind of change is always better! Try as you may, you cannot deny that change is eminent. Do not get so stuck in the past that you become virtually ineffective and incapable of receiving a new assignment with a fresh anointing from the Lord. I am not speaking of switching from truth to error; I am simply speaking of becoming so pliable in the hands of the Lord that He could trust you to serve Him and His Word in any environment He sends you to without becoming so rigidly opposed to others that you can’t serve.
~ Pastor Gary Caudill