Speaker: Dr. Harold J. Sala | Series: Guidelines For Living | It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness. Lamentations 3:22-23

One of the things that I most missed living in Asia where there are two basic seasons—hot and humid, and hot and humid with rain. I always think of the Aspens of the high country where I grew up, which begin to change to a myriad mixture of gold, rust, and brown as the chemical acids in the leaves react to the chill of frost, and, hence, a marvelous beauty, unrivaled and unduplicated by human brush or pen.

As I’ve grown older, I’ve also come to face the reality that there are seasons to life as well. To fight the changing of the seasons is as foolish as to fight the tides that change the landscape of the beach or the reality that each season brings with it a uniqueness that can either bless us as we go with the flow or leave us bitter, broken, and barren when we fight it.

Speaking of changing with the seasons, psychologist Dr. Archibald Hart says, “There are really only two types of people—those who accept the need to change and those who don’t. The former grow; the latter stay trapped in a prison of stagnation.”

The reality is we don’t like change. We much prefer life to remain like the photo of the lovely aspens that grace the landscape or the family portrait with the kids dressed in their Sunday-best and everyone smiling, healthy, and robust.

In recent years our world has greatly changed, and much of that change is unsettling to us. Today there is no such thing as a leisurely stroll through an airport. Travel is a grim business, answering questions for security agents, walking through metal detectors, and glaring at passengers with dark glasses, wondering if they could turn your flight into a hijacking nightmare.

The insecurities of life today translate into our lives and families. And we would like to go back to the way life used to be, but there is no going back. In his book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey says, “People can’t live with change if there’s not a changeless core inside them.” He’s right. The changeless core of faith within becomes a gyroscope that keeps you on track when the entire world around you seems to be crumbling.

Lee McDowell, writing about the importance of changing with the seasons of life reflected on the loss of her husband, then president of Denver Seminary, the death of her sister, and the loss of her mother, to say nothing of the empty nest that she faced when her son got married. Writing of the importance of embracing change she concludes, saying, “Embracing change has resulted in a journey of growth, taking me to a place I did not want to go only to find there the person I wanted to be.” How could it be said any better?

While most of us expect God to change the circumstances that are brought by the chilly winds of life, God is using them to change us into something different, something that we would never become apart from the abrasiveness of change itself.

When I was in the home of Wang Ming Dao, a dear brother who spent 22 years in a Chinese prison for his faith, I mentioned that I had read his book, A Stone Made Smooth, which really deals with how God uses the abrasive circumstances of life to change us into what He wants us to become. With a twinkle in his eye, he remarked, “Stone still not yet smooth!” Yes, to the end, he was becoming the saint prepared for heaven. That’s the change that counts.

Resource reading: Lamentations 3.