CHANGE - One thing certain is change.  At times it feels like things are changing around me at a dizzying pace.

At the same time change seems so slow to happen inside me.  There are many things I would like to see different inside but the change is either too painful, too difficult or too scary.  There are habits I can't seem to break.  Change is hard to come by.

"For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out." [Romans 7:18b]

Sometimes my response is one of denial.  "Changes?  I don't see any need for changes.  Everything's fine!"

Denial is one way we get "stuck" in the past and become unable to cope with changes.  The world changes and people around us change.  But we get left behind because we have stuck our heads in the proverbial sand.  It's comfortable for awhile but it can become stifling.  We have to come up for air, but that can be a difficult and anxiety producing process.

Our resistance to change creates fear and anger, even depression.  We worry about change.  We fight the inevitable.  We desperately need someone we can trust to help us move out of the past into the future ... without losing everything we hold dear. 

When we begin to risk exploring a change, it's as if we are starting all over again.  Everything we have learned or achieved in the past seems to count for nothing in the future.  We feel like we are "babes in the woods," greenhorns, rookies, trainees, nobodies.

Part of the capacity to change comes by being committed to a group of people who are themselves involved in change.  But they are not dependent on surviving change under their own power.  Instead they are committed to Someone who does not change ... tied into Someone so big our global and personal changes can be handled without threat or loss. 

 That Someone for me is Jesus.  Who is it for you?

 "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever."
 [Hebrews 13:8] 

• What are some of the changes that have happened in the world that have made an impact on your life?
• What would you like to see changed inside you?