change

I usually write blogs after I have been through something, or had some sort of great revelation. This time I felt I needed to write while I was in the middle of something, still getting revelation...I hope it might encourage you.

If there is one thing you can be sure of, it is CHANGE! When I was a child I loved change...from re-arranging my parents furniture every week, to being so excited to move from Florida to Georgia just because it was different...I seemed to chase change. As a grew up change became more about dealing with things, and less about FUN! It seems the older you get the more change happens, and the bigger the change becomes. You graduate high school, you go to college, move away from your parents and everything you know...get married, pay your own bills, try having your own career, having kids...and those are just the big changes most people go through..in the meantime there are all the little changes you deal with as well.

So how do we deal with change? You know it is inevitable...so why do we tend to be so surprised when things change. God is the same yesterday today and forever, and yet He is forever changing!! How does that work? I have no idea, all I know is that it makes sense, in a crazy weird kind of way. Usually the reason change is always so hard is because we have to give up something we are comfortable with...but here is the amazing part...

If you choose to embrace change as GOD's change, and put your trust completely in HIM, He will walk you through the transition period, which is usually the most difficult. If you choose to TRUST your Father (GOD), He will take you on a journey like you have never known. You find yourself in a position where you have lost everything that made up who you were, and everything that made you comfortable in this life. And you find yourself searching for your identity, which if realized could be an amazing opportunity.

This is when you turn to your Daddy (GOD), because He is truly the only one who knows your true identity, even more than YOU do. This isn't always easy because it means you must surrender everything you think you ae, your pride, your dreams, the way you see yourself as such an amazing person...it all must be given up. I think this is what the Bible is speaking of when it says, "I am crucified with Christ, its no longer I that live, but Christ lives in me." You never really understand this verse until you lose it all. But it is when you lose "everything", that you find EVERYTHING! (That is, everything that is TRUE)

We think we have it all under control, and we know everything. We think we can provide for our family, we can be the perfect husband, the loving Father...we think that we can pull this of on our own, and we usually don't realize that this is impossible until we fall flat on our face. Then we realize that it is only GOD through us that can be the person we were created to be. Full of LOVE, JOY, PEACE, PATIENCE, KINDNESS, GOODNESS, FAITHFULNESS, MEEKNESS, & SELF CONTROL. We were made in His image so that His image could be seen by the world.

Father, I have changed my image to look like what I want, and what I want others to see...I ask you to take that image from me, and shatter it. Lord, break me, and put me back together in a new form, a form that looks like You, so the World can see YOU, and only You!

I love you daddy, thank you for never leaving me.