June 5 - Change

June 5 – Change

Now I am going to him who sent me. None of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ Rather, you are filled with grief because I have said these things. But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: about sin, because people do not believe in me; about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; and about judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.

“I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.” (John 16:5-15)

This is one of those passages that relates a lot to my life. 

It is so easy to get stuck on living life the way we are used to living – without change.  When we see change approaching, we do everything in our power to halt its approach and when we can’t get that done, we grieve for the old way of life.

The disciples couldn’t even ask Jesus where He was going because they were so focused on their grief.  They didn’t understand that in the changes that were to come, the entire earth would be transformed. 

Jesus saw the big picture.  He recognized that change would bring great things and that with His death, the power of the Holy Spirit would be able to cover the entirety of the world, not just the small area where His feet could travel.  The disciples would take His message into the world, empowered by the Holy Spirit.

I have a love/hate relationship with change. I have learned to look far past the moment of change to see all the possibilities that are out there, so it excites me in many cases.  In other cases – sometimes very personal cases – I panic when I realize that change is coming.  I want to ignore it and hope that it will pass me by and everything will stay the same when I come out of my hidey-hole.

When Jesus talked to His disciples about change, the one thing He made clear was that He (and the Father and the Spirit) were consistent – never changing.  There is one thing that we can always count on to remain the same.  The Spirit would come to bring truth, but everything that the Spirit relates to us comes from Jesus … from the Father. The teaching will remain the same, the relationship will remain the same.  He is unchanging … the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.

So, I face change with the knowledge that there is stability found in Jesus Christ.  I may face it from inside a hole with a blanket pulled over my head, or I may face it with my arms open wide, but I will never be alone.  There will be a foundation under my feet no matter what.