I don’t know about you, but this cold snap has been the right medicine after months of feeling like I just stepped out of a sauna. The small dip in temps has put enough pep in my step to get the wheels moving towards a new season We have put up most of the boating gear in exchange for ATVs and deer feeders. College football is in full swing, fall decorations have come down from the attic and recently I pulled the gumbo pot out of the pantry because this cooler air has ushered in a different appetite.
Change is inevitable. We see it around every street corner and in every tree line. From the seasons to daylight savings time, a repeating cycle that we’ve all known and lived in since creation, continues with no room for interruptions or opinions. The leaves, weather patterns and even what’s on the stove all dance to the music escorted in by this alteration.
Change is humbling. I prayed for change this morning, a request for more heat from the Refiner’s fire and the removal of a manufactured idea to perform at a level I was never designed to keep pace with. Hopefully, the restoration of these dry bones comes quick. The loss of daylight hours in the afternoon reminds again that life is a vapor, and the laborers are few.
Change is scary. A few seconds on any news channel will prove to you just how much consistency there is in a world full of inconsistency. The crafty stand at the ready, waiting to pounce on a host of fear mongering opportunities eager to sell you the next shiny fix-all. Morals at one time which had value now no longer do, and as seen a few days ago, geographical landscapes forever altered by mother nature’s fury.
But, unlike the foliage and the temperature and what’s on the menu, I sleep well at night knowing my Savior is still on His throne. He remains forever immutable and abandons perfection to meet me in the imperfection, every day. His well of forgiveness is deeper than the earth’s core and His love will outlast time itself. His grace is more abundant than the leaves on the ground and His provision proves to be enough for the grand sequoia and the underestimated mustard seed, in the same breath. His desire to remain in the resurrecting business leaves me on my knees in awe as my survival without it materializes.
Be encouraged brothers and sisters. It is in these tumultuous times of change that the real gems illuminate the hill. Pray for those who are undergoing constant turmoil in this world and stand in gratitude for the circle you’re a part of, and the family and friends that hold hands around you. Because of God’s perfect use of temperature and time, an initiated change in stature has nowhere to go but up, leaving behind the evidence of an ore, born of the most precious gold, elucidating the dark and being mined alone, by God Himself.
