Change Just Is

An email from a Christian radio station this morning made me think about change. The writer used telephones as an example. Referring to Star Trek and Captain Kirk, he wrote—

Let’s take a trip in the way back machine for a moment, to 1996. Did you have a flip phone?

Matt Stockman

Yes, we did have flip phones. But in 1966, the year Star Trek debuted, no, we didn't. And going back further—remember Dick Tracy?—we didn't have watch phones either. But, now we do. And as Matt pointed out, flip phones can be bought "by the shoebox full at Goodwill."

Change is. It just is.

Change happens all around us every day. It is especially apparent this time of year as the trees go from bare branches to flourishing with leaves.

Change happens in us as well. We grow; then stop growing—well, except our hair and nails. But we are still changing, our bodies getting older. Wrinkles and gray hair become more visible and other things which don't need to be named.

And change happens in us in other ways. As believers we grow from faith to faith as we walk in step with the Spirit in this land of the living.

We can't help, then, to recognize that change is reality. But how often go we overlook that change is necessary in our children, too. Oh, I know we notice their physical changes and their intellectual changes. But do we consider and pray about the changes they will have in life and need to go through to develop into the disciples of Christ that He wants of them?

So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image.

2 Corinthians 3:18 (NLT)

It is often our mom-sense in life to protect our children in such a way that we hinder the change that the Spirit wants to bring about. We want them like our old land line phones, receiver attached to the telephone base with a cord. Or it might be that we want them too soon to become a smart phone and push them into places they are not ready for. Either way, we get in the way of the Spirit whose work is to create the change He desires.

…so we are being transformed, metamorphosed, into His same image

from one radiance of glory to another,

just as the Spirit of the Lord accomplishes it.

2 Corinthians 3:18b

My prayer for us is that we will participate well in the change the Spirit desires to produce in our children.