Change, Disruption, Unfamiliar?
August 16, 2018| Jerry Siler Jr.
How do these words make you feel? Change, disruption, unfamiliar, silence, and unknown? To most these words are not liked because the world has created a culture where these words have a negative feeling or a bad emotion attached to them. We have taken these words and have attached to them feelings of fear, nervousness, loneliness, and restlessness to name a few and this is why most Christian people miss a God moment. A moment where God is attempting to develop something in you to become a part of you that is the nature of God Himself. We tend to misinterpret these words as bad words but in these words are where you are most likely to find God. That place of transition, waiting, and not knowing is a place most people hate to be. It is when you are required to leave the familiar place that has become comfortable, but have not yet been able to replace it with anything else. It is when you are finally out of the way. It is when you are between your old comfort zone and any possible new answer. It resembles a threshold in a doorway. A place where you leave one environment and enter another. A place of transition, of waiting and not knowing our "next.” Each ushers in a new chapter of life, and each holds varying degrees of disruption and loss of control. Because change never exists in a box, no matter how hard we might try to contain it. Change in one area of life always ripples into others disrupting the status quo there. As much as we like to structure our lives as though community, spirituality, vocation, relationships, and friendships, change becomes a scary and much avoided word. We spend a large majority of our time asking God the questions like, where do You want me to live? Where do You want me to work? Where should I go to school at? Should I attend this church or not? What we fail to understand is that although God cares about you and your welfare He doesn’t much care about the things you find yourself caring about. What God is most concerned about is your development into becoming His righteousness. You being made into His image and likeness. In these places of the unfamiliar, unknown, and risks are where you will always find God. But because we have attached negative things to these words we continue to spin our wheels in frustration and never embrace these things as God. We say things like, this can’t be God this must be the devil. Until you embrace the culture of heaven you will remain the same, when God is requiring growth. To many Christians are under developed and immature. 20, 30, or even 40 year old Christians still on the milk bottle. If my 20 year old child still crawled everywhere while wearing a diaper but my child had the ability to walk and the understanding to use a toilet, I would be so upset and sad that my child has not embraced the gifts that were given to them like strong legs and muscles and intelligence. I hope I am explaining this well enough. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith Romans 1:17 If faith reveals His righteousness and God requires us to grow in faith to faith, then expect to use your faith and develop your faith! You will be stretched, formed, molded, and tried. It will be uncomfortable, unfamiliar, and will more than likely mess up your plans. But I cannot stress this enough, embrace this moment! God’s business is you and you becoming like Him. Remember if you are in Christ then whatever is confronting you is there because He is allowing it to be there. It is only there because He is requiring you to confront it. Remember when God calls you something He expects you to become that very thing. If God calls you an overcomer then He expects you to be and overcomer in everything and so on. Once you discover your identity then you will discover your authority. Embrace the unknown, embrace the unfamiliar, embrace the silence and enter these places with joy because it is in these places where God likes to be. It is where He makes Himself known, He gets familiar with you, and He waiting to have a good conversation with you.