Transition: Coping with the Stress of Change

If one word could characterize the reality of the times in which we live, it would be 'transition'. We are all being moved from where we were, to somewhere we've never been. It makes for some unique challenges as we face the uncertainty of unfamiliar places. When the world changes rapidly around us, our emotions, our thoughts and our beliefs get shaken to the core. While we scratch our heads in bewilderment, we feel our 'gut' grow queasy and our jaw tighten. Just what in the world is going on?

The cliches of 'positive thinking' and shallow faith don't cut it in times of raw adversity and death. Just what is real when the world you know comes crashing down around you? We often don't realize just how shallow we really are. When we try to condense truth into a top ten bestseller, we realize that the world doesn't publish the best of advice for real word brokenness. It just won't sell. Uncertainty and hard questions never make it to the publisher.

While we try to figure out where we're going, we forget to look around and see "WHO" we're travelling with. The reality is that the who is more important than the where on this pilgrimage better known as life. We're all on a journey to a forever place. The passages, the transitions, the things we do are all so temporary that if they become our focus we might just miss the reason for it all. What a tragedy to live and never know the reality that life is all about relationships.

While we seek for greatness, meaning and significance we might just miss the One relationship that is meant to define all others. The invisible everlasting Father.... the God of the universe waits for us to open our hearts, our minds, our ears to the voice that makes sense in the midst of confusion.  Three words call us continually from the place just beyond the horizon. The Father speaks them in an ongoing chorus of certainty and persistence, "I love you". While we seek for a job.... a place, a title, a mate, a retirement plan, a whatever...... God offers us himself and we spurn that everlasting sustenance for a drive through mirage made of sand. How terribly sad!

So often we waste our sorrows. We expend our depression, our grief, our disappointment on a temporary high or experience that can never substitute for a forever love. The God who created us displayed his love in an unconditional abandonment that can never be equaled or surpassed. He took your broken soul and laid himself on a cross to heal you..... to forgive you.....to restore you.

While the world trembles and fears increase, God offers himself to hold onto through the turbulence.... the pain, the tears and the fears. Transition isn't meant to destroy us. It's meant to cause us to look beyond the face we see in the mirror. Yes, we're broken. But the God who loves broken people is looking out through the other side of the mirror with a face of acceptance and not condemnation. He's smiling.... and waiting for us to come home to the place that never changes.... to his house. Sit down and rest awhile. He's got time.....lots of time. He's got forever in his hands and plenty of room for you.... for me.... for all of us. Welcome home.

Jim