“Change isn’t always bad…” If I’ve said that line once, I’ve said it a thousand times. It is true though. You change a stinky diaper on a baby that screams – and all the people say, “Amen.” Usually the screaming and the smell subside. You change the oil in your car and it makes your engine (if you believe those talking car commercials) speak well of the owner. You change cell service or ISP to get better service or rates. You change channels on TV, the type of cologne/perfume you wear, and the list goes on. Change isn’t always bad, and in some cases it isn’t just beneficial but also freeing. As Cheryl Crow sang a couple years ago, “Change, will do you good.”

I have to remind myself that change isn’t always bad…but sometimes it isn’t easy. Translated that means “change is fear provoking.” Change moves you from the known into the unknown. Last year, we moved from a place and from people we loved, to a place and a people we didn’t know. Unknown, scared, fearful, confused, and eight more adjectives could describe that life-change. But God was in it all somewhere and the change has resulted in a healthier and happier family (and self).

I suppose the fear of “what comes next” is why the Jewish leadership rejected change, when Jesus showed up. There was too much comfort, too much control, too much fear…to allow them to change. Jesus says something about not putting new wine into old wine skins. The movement of God is always in transition. (Notice I’m not remotely suggesting that God’s message or mission have changed…the Cross and Christ are solid.) It is the way in which God chooses to manifest His Spirit - in people and in church – that vary. God spoke to Moses in a burning bush but later changed that approach and spoke to his people through prophets. Even later he changed and showed himself in Jesus of Nazareth. Change isn’t bad, but it’s not easy.

There is a change a’ blowing. It isn’t just in me, although that is happening, but there is change happening around me. Instead of howling at the moon, cussing the dirt, and beating the air, in short, resisting change; I’m attempting to be accepting. Accepting of change, accepting of people, accepting of where God is moving and leading. I love the wisdom found in Reinhold Niebuhr’s simple prayer – “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change, change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”