Growing up in the military you quickly learn not to get used to your surroundings for very long because the military would always have another station or new orders for your dad to carry out, and your world and everything around you could change very quickly. I can remember as a kid celebrating the last day of school in the 4th grade and anticipating the beginning of summer. The last bell of the day ringing, the excitement of the walk home with an empty backpack except for the stuff I had cleaned out of my desk. Summer's seemed to last an eternity then. I opened the front door of my house excited to begin the long hot Missouri summer to find out that we would be moving to Germany for the next 3 years.
Change can be a stressor, sometimes we have a warning that it is coming, sometimes we walk through a door and it is there to greet us and in one instant we are going a different direction. "We would like for you to consider retirement now...", "The test results are positive...", "We are moving the company in a different direction..." "We would like for you to consider moving to another office located in another state...", no matter how the change hits it takes a moment, we take a breath and in that moment we come to a fork in the road. There is a choice to make or perhaps the choice has been made for us and we are to just follow the assignment. Those moments can bring us to a place we never thought we would be five minutes ago, because five minutes ago it was just the beginning of summer right?
Change brought us from Missouri to Oklahoma, my wife was offered an opportunity with a local hospital and after weighing out everything and looking at all of the changes that this meant we had questions, BIG ones.
Change many times often makes us ask questions, Germany? where is Germany ? Why did this happen to me? how does this happen? It is within these moments of change that I am so thankful for my relationship with Christ. Without Him all you have are questions, but knowing Him, having a personal relationship with Him, you get the answers. You are able to bring those questions to Him in prayer, to talk with him about how you feel. He loves to hear us ask why, how, and where, more importantly He loves answering us. If you feel wronged by a friend, an employer, a spouse, a parent, tell Him, talk with Him. If you don't understand something that is going on in your life, ask Him to show you why. He knows you, He understands you more than anyone. He loves you and it is His joy to draw you closer to Him. He is in pursuit of you and that is perhaps all the more reason for big changes to happen and big questions to come about in your life for I have found in those moments I draw nearer to Him, rely on Him, not to just get me through it, but to get to know Him more. Many times we go through our Christian walk when change hits us feeling like we are barely holding on to God, when in fact it is He that holds us the entire time.
How wonderful that the cost of this change of knowing Him, the full price has already been paid by Him, He has already paid with His life, all we have to do is accept Him.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Sunday, February 6, 2011
God's Promise - in an Epic Storm
Broken Arrow, Oklahoma became our home in January of 2011, it also became the bulls eye of the strongest Blizzard in recent history this past week, and it is not over yet, we have more snow called for in the forecast. We have spent time together inside, keeping in touch with loved ones in Missouri and monitoring Facebook. Cars and trucks were abandoned on a closed down I 44 from Tulsa to Springfield, Missouri, and it felt strange that even if we wanted to get back to where we had lived for years we could not get there with the main interstate closed down for days.
Storms have a way of putting us on alert, the warnings ring out, our senses are conditioned to pay attention and to make sure you are prepared to seek shelter, and to make sure you have taken certain precautions in order to protect yourself and your family. We immediately went to the store to stock up on basic food and supplies gearing up to be trapped for a few days, and it was there as I looked at some empty shelves, that I realized how we are truly blessed to live in a time when we have big huge markets to go to, can you imagine how our ancestors that coped with storms like this where they were trapped for days and made due with what was available and stored and stocked up, today we panic if we think we will not be able to get to the store for 3 or 4 days.
Storms have this way of measuring us giving us a barometer of where we may be in our faith, we don't have to be in a boat and feel the waves all of sudden come up on us any more, no we now have the capability of viewing Doppler radar and seeing the gathering clouds coming in over the Rockies from space so that we can really build up our fear days before so that it has plenty of time to really set in our hearts and give us even more time to worry, to let fear come over you, to cause you to rush to the store and buy 3 carts full of groceries just in case you have to go 4 days without getting to the store.
Just like the 12 disciples waking up a sleeping Jesus, telling Him it was storming, we hit our panic button, we start thinking about what we can do to help ourselves in this situation which assumes we have some sort of control when the storms of life can come across but every once in awhile the size of the storm is so epic that you realize that there is only Christ who has control, we can shovel, we can stock up, run to the store and buy groceries, but the storm hits and God reminds us that He holds our life and has a plan that He is bringing to fulfillment. The night in the boat, the storm came, the disciples panic, the Lord is sleeping, they wake Him, and then He calms the sea and quiets the storm. Many of us who are familiar with the ending of this story read over it and we miss the purpose, we jump to the end because we anticipate it, Jesus stopped the storm He CALMED the sea, in doing so the purpose of the storm is revealed, more importantly He was revealed to them, what an amazing experience to draw on, to live through to witness and to rely on. Can you imagine the impact on their faith, living through that, seeing Christ calm the storm, these were the men that would carry on to establish the church after He was crucified, they would give testimony to who He was, they would face more storms in their life to come with the experience of knowing the one who with one command they saw him calm the sea.
God is still in control today, in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, the epic Blizzard of 2011 has made its place in history even as the drifts are still at my front door about 2 feet high, I am reminded that no matter how deep the snow will drift or the winds will blow, God is in control, and has a plan here in Oklahoma, for each person to come to know Him, and have a relationship with Him.
Storms have a way of putting us on alert, the warnings ring out, our senses are conditioned to pay attention and to make sure you are prepared to seek shelter, and to make sure you have taken certain precautions in order to protect yourself and your family. We immediately went to the store to stock up on basic food and supplies gearing up to be trapped for a few days, and it was there as I looked at some empty shelves, that I realized how we are truly blessed to live in a time when we have big huge markets to go to, can you imagine how our ancestors that coped with storms like this where they were trapped for days and made due with what was available and stored and stocked up, today we panic if we think we will not be able to get to the store for 3 or 4 days.
Storms have this way of measuring us giving us a barometer of where we may be in our faith, we don't have to be in a boat and feel the waves all of sudden come up on us any more, no we now have the capability of viewing Doppler radar and seeing the gathering clouds coming in over the Rockies from space so that we can really build up our fear days before so that it has plenty of time to really set in our hearts and give us even more time to worry, to let fear come over you, to cause you to rush to the store and buy 3 carts full of groceries just in case you have to go 4 days without getting to the store.
Just like the 12 disciples waking up a sleeping Jesus, telling Him it was storming, we hit our panic button, we start thinking about what we can do to help ourselves in this situation which assumes we have some sort of control when the storms of life can come across but every once in awhile the size of the storm is so epic that you realize that there is only Christ who has control, we can shovel, we can stock up, run to the store and buy groceries, but the storm hits and God reminds us that He holds our life and has a plan that He is bringing to fulfillment. The night in the boat, the storm came, the disciples panic, the Lord is sleeping, they wake Him, and then He calms the sea and quiets the storm. Many of us who are familiar with the ending of this story read over it and we miss the purpose, we jump to the end because we anticipate it, Jesus stopped the storm He CALMED the sea, in doing so the purpose of the storm is revealed, more importantly He was revealed to them, what an amazing experience to draw on, to live through to witness and to rely on. Can you imagine the impact on their faith, living through that, seeing Christ calm the storm, these were the men that would carry on to establish the church after He was crucified, they would give testimony to who He was, they would face more storms in their life to come with the experience of knowing the one who with one command they saw him calm the sea.
God is still in control today, in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, the epic Blizzard of 2011 has made its place in history even as the drifts are still at my front door about 2 feet high, I am reminded that no matter how deep the snow will drift or the winds will blow, God is in control, and has a plan here in Oklahoma, for each person to come to know Him, and have a relationship with Him.
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