The truth

Ok, so for the 2 of you who read this regularly, you know the last post was tongue-in-cheek. I am the queen of sarcasm, if nothing else. I have blown the circumstances of what is going on at our church out of proportion to prove how silly we all can be. I will have to say, the vast majority of our church seems to be open to change and are doing whatever they can to stay positive and look ahead instead of looking at what once was. I’m proud of our pastor and our new worship leader. They are often in a no win situation and continue to rise above the petty fray. Yet, the fact that some of this stuff goes on has irritated me and got me thinking. Change is constant, so why do we resist it so much? The one thing that saddens me most is what we might be missing when we refuse to change. My husband has changed over the 22 years I have known him, and while there may be times he and I both wonder what happened to the people we married, we stick it out, work through it, and admire the people we have become instead of comparing who we are to who we were. Thank God my husband does that for me! My children change on a daily basis. Never once do I consider kicking them to the curb or putting them up for adoption (ok, maybe in a brief moment of weakness, but I get over it!). Change is going to happen in your life: your marriage; your job; yes, even your church. The way I see it, I have two choices when facing change. I can grasp on to what I know; what I refuse to change; what is comfortable and familiar. I can grip this with all my might and dig my nails into it and say “this is the right way and I’m not changing”…..and then shudder as I am dragged across the chalkboard of the inevitable changes in my life. Or I can stand, feet firmly planted, on the rock of my foundation. I can stand on the truths that I know and not be tossed by the wind and the waves. I’ve talked about it before, but I hate change. I don’t adapt well. The funny thing is though, the times I have felt closest to the Lord are the times he has plucked me from my nice warm bed of familiarity and thrown me into the icy waters of the unknown. It is then that I need him. It is then that I search him. It is then that I find him. It is then, and only then, that I am able to open my heart and my mind to what his plan is – not mine. It is only by being bounced around in the icy waters that I realize how small I am, and how big he is. That his plans are better than mine. The change in our worship routine has made me examine my own motives for Sunday morning. I’ll be honest, my motives are selfish at times. If our Senior pastor isn’t there, I’m apt to sleep in. I want to be moved; I want to hear from the Lord. But is that what worship is about? Honestly, no. Worship is not about me; it’s about Him. I know we worship in different ways, and I respect that. But when you come to church to be entertained, you’ve missed the point. Everyone has different reasons for attending church. They range from being able to teach children about Jesus to catching up with their friends. None of those things are necessarily wrong. Many of your needs can and should be met by your church. But your reasons for attending Sunday worship should have very little, if at all, to do with you. Worship is about God. Worship is designed to praise the God who made you, to worship the One who gave his life to save you. You should enter into worship with a thankful heart that the God of the universe knows your name and loves you beyond reasoning. When you walk into church with that in mind, does it really matter what the choir is wearing? We are no different than the Israelites marching through the desert. God released them from slavery in Egypt so they could worship him. Did you get that? So they could worship him. They were freed from slavery; had their freedom, yet, what did they do? Complained. Not only did they complain, they compared their current situation with their past. Catching any similarities here? They were free, and yet they whined that they wanted to go back to Egypt so they could eat well. If only they could have trusted God’s plan. If only they could have trusted their leaders. If only they could have stopped complaining for one minute and offered a praise of thanksgiving and a prayer for their leaders and their people. Maybe that’s what we all should do.