BIFOCALS

Do you hate change as much as I do? If you’re like me, you’re a creature of habit! How we so want to hold on to what is comfortable and familiar. When the unexpected makes us nervous, change is not a welcomed guest.

My husband and I have a friend who jokes about the day he learned his wife was pregnant with their third child. Middle-aged and slightly balding, the concept came as quite a shock. “You know you’re in trouble,” he laughed, “when you have to pull out your bifocals to read the pregnancy test.” He added, “I thought our family was complete, but God apparently had another idea.”

With the news of this addition came visions of change—diapers, routines, and schedules, oh my! He laughingly claims that being a new father later in life changed his prayer life, too. “Mostly, I ask God to let this child get out of diapers before I have to be in them and to let him get on solid foods before I have to start gumming mine.”

Change is hard. Yet it is necessary for spiritual growth. If we always do what we’ve always done, we’ll always be what we’ve always been. Whatever the changes in this season of your life, rest assured, dear one, that God is doing a new thing. Do you sense it? It is springing up even now. Do you believe me? If not, pull out your bifocals and see for yourself. The test result is in and it is positive. God is birthing something new in and through you. Get ready. Change is on the way.

Forget the former things;
Do not dwell on the past.
 See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the desert
And streams in the wasteland.
Isaiah 43:18-19