I am savoring this morning with its gift of much-needed rest. Processing an image or two, listening to the sounds of summer, sunlight streaming in. It’s a glorious moment after a soul-weary week.
I’ve thought a lot about change this week. I always thought I didn’t like change. But as my class is winding down and I’m looking forward to the next, already excited with anticipation, I realize I like change that brings something new. I like beginnings, for they are full of possibilities. And as I think back to the small home project we finished a couple weeks ago and the satisfaction that comes with work well done, I realize I also like change that brings something to completion. I like endings, for they are full of accomplishment.
The changes I do not like are those of discovering what I thought was wasn’t, what I hoped would happ didn’t, what I worst-feared happened. I do not like changes that alter the course of relationships, plans, and life.
Yet, I know these sorts of changes are as sovereignly ordained as the changes I enjoy. So, when my soul is weary from effort gone unnoticed, unappreciated, and unheeded, I must turn to the One who brings renewal.
I know I offered this quote a couple weeks ago, but it is resonating in my heart so strongly today as I find myself in a place I did not want to go:
God will take you where you haven’t intended to go in order to produce in you what you could not achieve on your own. ~ Paul David Tripp
I am resting today in the knowledge that a necessary change is being wrought in me. I am resting in the hands of the One who promises to complete the work. The One who loves me enough to accomplish it.
And when I view the unwelcome change through Heaven’s eyes, I see that one day there will be His satisfaction of work well done, and I can look forward with anticipation to the change of Him making all things new.
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I am grateful for a weekend of rest, the love of friends, and the joy of watching members of our church family being baptized. Glory!
If your weekend has a few moments for reading, here are a couple links:
Pigment & Perfume {and what really matters}
I don’t want to waste my time, but even more importantly, I don’t want to call something a waste of time when it’s really an instrument entrusted to me.
The angry man is a sad man. The angry man is a reckless man. Did you know the angry man is a scared man too? Anger is most often born out of insecurity. The angry man is afraid he is not going to get his way, so he resorts to anger as a mechanism or means to get what he wants.
May you have a blessed weekend, friends. Full of love, laughter, and rest.
About Shelli Bourque