Change

There are a lot of changes happening at our house right now. Just this week, Little Bit started wearing glasses and celebrated her fifth birthday, and we traded my car I had driven for eighteen years. In a few weeks, Little Bit will start kindergarten, and I will go back to teaching. It’s enough to make my head spin! But all these changes are necessary and serve a purpose, no matter how much I like things to stay the same. I’ll use my car as an example…

We bought my old car new in 2005. It wasn’t anything fancy but exactly the car I had picked out, and it fit me just right. I had even bought the matchbox replica of this car before we purchased the real one. I enjoyed driving it for almost two decades, and would have been happy to keep driving it. Unfortunately, it had reached the point where a lot of costly repairs were going to be necessary to keep us safely on the road. It was hard to let go, but would have been dangerous to keep holding on.

All this made me think about how Jesus changed, and is still changing, me. Letting Him in meant that I had to let go of my old life, the life that was comfortable and familiar. But the old life without Him was also dangerous, and leading me to destruction, no matter how much I enjoyed things the way they were. Trading my old life for His new life was the only sensible decision I could make, and I have never regretted doing so.

And the change Jesus makes is not just a one time deal. He is constantly showing me the things in my life that I need to let go of in order to stay safe and grow in Him. It’s not always easy to make the necessary changes, but every time I end up better off than I was before.

Changing cars is not a permanent fix. Eventually, this new car will also need repairs and someday need to be traded for yet a newer car. But I won’t ever have to trade Jesus in for something newer and better. Even though I am constantly changing, He never does. I can count on Him to be the perfect source of everything good in my life, no matter what!