Whenever we start to tune in; whenever we start to act on the purpose, passions and priorities we’ve identified inside ourselves, we step into the streams of change. In big ways or small, life becomes different.
Many people don’t like change. They’re happy to live within normality. They may even be afraid of change. They want to stay out conflict and storm. But, to believe that you can evade or avoid change is a fantasy. The one thing constant in life is change and you can either change with it or get left behind.
I hope that you are not reluctant to change and that you don’t fear it. If you look back at your life, you’ll see that you have changed over and over again. If you’re not where you want to be in life, that doesn’t mean that changing has failed you – in fact, it probably means that you haven’t changed enough.
Hopefully, these three P’s – purpose, passions and priorities – have given you a thirst for change, or at least a willingness to drink from that cup. But, I also want you to realize that change will test you – more than that, it will proof you. Proof is a wonderful word. In addition to the usual meaning of evidence concerning something, it can also mean “to test for strength or durability.” Change will do that to you. Proof also means “to treat or coat for the purpose of rendering resistant to damage or deterioration.” Change will do that too – in resisting the opposition, you will build up your muscles.
“If you want the rainbow, you have to put up with the rain”.
We all face storms in our life, and we need to learn to weather them. There are three ways. Some storms you walk through. You stay steadfast and remain patient in the face of the challenge. Some storms you calm, with the help of God’s peace. And some storms you walk over. You do something you never thought you could do before. You take a job you didn’t think you could do. You “jump the facts.” You ignore what everyone says and what’s been done before and you take up the challenge. You walk on water; you jump the facts. When I was nineteen I couldn’t get into the university I wanted, but by my early twenties, I was teaching there.
Never let yesterday use up too much of today. If something bad happens one day, learn from it and move forward, because you can be sure that something new will happen today. Life can be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.
An excerpt from my book, “Utmost Living”
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3 Comments
Good stuff. Always.
Yea, unfortunately, yet Previously…”my yesterdays have taken up lots of todays”..HOWEVER, after whirlwinds of change, I’m now “leaping over the facts” and it is oh so good, actually, it is SO GOD!!!
Blessings,
Kirstin Leigh
I appreciate this lesson “Change and Challenge.” I remember long ago before I accepted Jesus, I would shake my fist up to God and ask Him why did he put me on this earth to suffer so? When I was little and my mom wanted to punish me she would put me down in the seller with the rats. I would scream and scream but she wouldn’t let me out! She tried to make me eat a dustpan of ants once and she kept telling me that I was a strange child. I didn’t know the Lord or anything about accepting Him as Savior but every night I would be on my knees praying for my mom and dad. At seventeen, when I accepted Jesus, OH MY GOD, how I changed; He became my life and breath. Now, many years later, I work with male inmates; I supervise them in their kitchen duties at a jail. If I hadn’t experienced the things that God brought me through, there is no way I could work with these men and have the grace of God to witness to them about my Loving Savior. Thanks Tim; keep yielding.
The Lord woke me up with a rebuke this morning He said, “You didn’t show the proof that challenge brings change.” Sir, please allow me a moment to explain. I wrote yesterday about some challenges that I went through as a child but I failed to say that my mother accepted Jesus as Savior before she died. Also, yes I work with male inmates in jail in the kitchen but I failed to write that scores of inmates have cried their way to salvation. We even had a Detention Officer who was on post in the kitchen who died in the chair; his bodily functions were released from his body and with the firemen, nurses and ambulance workers present, the Lord raised that man from the dead. He is alive today. To God Be All the Glory! God is even real in the jails. Please keep it up Sir! Your ministry is such an encouragement.
Rane