Change- by John Gruber

This post was written by John Gruber back in 2008. The truths still apply today, so we'd like to share them with you. Enjoy!

I used to think there were only two certainties in life- death and taxes. While the one is inescapable the other is a constant drain on all the oppressed who are blessed with an income. There is however another definite constant that is unavoidable. It is undeniable and blatantly obvious. It goes on in us and around us everyday. It even happens while we are sleeping. It is change. I write this as a person who is changing and I am writing to you, a person who is different today than you were yesterday, last week, last month, last year.

To say we do not change is to deny a fundamental truth of human existence. However, of all the ways that change happens to you and me, the spiritual changes are often the hardest to recognize. It’s not hard to see the change that marriage makes, or the change in income between the old job, the new job, or no job at all. It’s not hard to see your child change from crawling to walking to running. Yet if you evaluate how you are better suited to live this thing called the Christian life, you may find it a little more difficult to see those areas of needed change.

"To say we do not change is to deny a fundamental truth of human existence." Post to Twitter

One Bible professor said it this way, “Only one word describes the life of a believer, and that word is “change”.” Now I would have said “saved”, “redeemed”. “born again” and so on. The word change truly captures the essence of our spiritual journey and resting place in the Savior, Jesus Christ. I was changed from lost to found, from dead in my sin to alive in Christ, from sinner to saint. As grand and glorious as salvation is, change does not stop upon our acceptance of the free Gift. No, change defines the actual life of true believers. Change from self and the old man to Christ-likeness and towards living out of our new nature. This change is testimony of a God who is alive, active, and pursuing all those who are his children.
 
Often times His desire to change us goes unnoticed, and then there are those ordained moments when He desires to change us in ways so deep and to the core that we wince, cry, and even kick against it. After all, although we can’t deny that we need to change sometimes we just feel safe that things are the way they are. So infinite and deep is our God’s knowledge of what is good for us that change takes on dimensions that are unfamiliar and down right scary to us. 

"So critical is our need to be changed into the image of Christ that God has a no-holds-barred approach in our sanctification process." Post to Twitter

I think of the changes over the past several years in my own life. It seems that the most dark and troublesome times brought about the most deep and lasting change. Those things I feared greatly were used to strip me of the nuts and bolts that I thought life in Christ was all about. My journey began as my wife, Pat, regressed into depression- a depression so deep that our lives were turned inside out. What used to be safe and secure was stripped away. Confidences in finances, job security, physical health, family, friends, church, home, and worst of all, faith evaporated in a few horrific months. Feet that found safety on the firm ground of “normal” found a slippery slope that slid down to a dark, foreboding pit.  Hope in God met squarely with hope in medicine. Faith in God looked face to face with reliance on self. There was no comfort, there was no relief, there was no joy, there was no light. Looking back, I still shutter at the shear horror of that time. I don’t wish it on anyone, in fact I would rather trade places with someone in the pit of depression. I can say this because I know that lasting change has at its very core in a God who changes what we call bad and arduous into something good and holy. So here I am, changed. Seeing in retrospect what was the only solution possible to mold and make Pat and me into children of the King that look more like Him and function in ways that bring Him glory. Those of you reading who know me, know that this child of the King isn’t perfect yet. I need more change, don’t I? Perhaps it will come slow and comfortably, perhaps it will come swiftly and painfully. There are no guarantees as to how God will grow us, but this one fact shows His great and abiding grace and power- He will change us and He will change us for our good and His eternal purposes. Isn’t that worth rejoicing over!

welcome to missio Dei.