Change

Over the past months (maybe even years, I haven't kept track) we have been talking in our church staff meetings about change. It's never easy for people, everyone seems to want to hold on to something special.

I had a thought Sunday while praying. I wonder if it's because we have made things holy by association. I'll explain. At some point many, if not all, people at our church have had a holy moment or spiritual experience with God. And those are great. But I wonder if we start to tie that moment to the things around us. It happened in the sanctuary, so God is only in the sanctuary. It happened while I was sitting in a pew so now I have a special connection to pews. It happened at the 9:45 service so forever I can only go to the 9:45 service. Is getting closer to God like lucky gym socks? Our team won a football game when I wore these socks so for every game from now on I will wear these socks. Do we try and recreate our experience with God with all the little things around us?

What if I were to try and do that with my wife? Our honeymoon was great, so every vacation from now on has to be where we went on our honeymoon. The best conversation we ever had was at this restaurant so from now on whenever we go out to eat, it's only that restaurant (and I need to order the same thing). And what about things that aren't meant to be recreated forever? On our first date I drove my 1994 Toyota Camry. It's long broken down and sold, should I try to get it back and force us to push it or use it somehow on our next date to recreate the magic?

It seems ludicrous, but do we do it with God? Do we take the things around us and try not to change them because in some way changing them makes us lose our grip on that experience with God? The sad part is, by doing so, we probably make sure that God can't move us forward to the new thing He has for us. Maybe that's why Jesus said this to those who wanted to help Him in ministry:

Luke 9:62 ~ Jesus said, “Anyone who begins to plow a field but keeps looking back is of no use in the kingdom of God.” (NCV)

If you plow a field and look back, you don't see where you are going and you end up with a useless not-straight line. I don't know, maybe we need to let go of some things that are our holy lucky charms and try to hold on to Jesus and focus on His ministry instead.

T