Oct 24, 2012

Planning Change...

I have always tended towards liking change. I really enjoy surprises, but like most, I like change on my terms, and in ways I can grasp or get a handle on. However, minor changes do not typically phase me, I enjoy the challenge of seeing if I can pull an audible in the middle of something and go with it.. Other times I plan change, and that is my favorite, such as changing my hair color or buying a puppy (I am so tired haha)...

What is by far the most difficult change for me (and likely everyone else) is when I have to help someone else change or plan change. Partially because to some extent, even if you like change... you don't like change. And, let's call a spade a spade here, change is hard.

What I love about my new job is, I am totally in my sweet spot of helping others be better, more effective, more passionate, more excited, and more challenged to dive deeper into our Lord, sorta like swimming in the ocean. I love that whether for good, bad or exhausting, my job is to help others grow in Christ.

Couple reminders based on things I have noticed lately:

Change is difficult and stressful. 
            "So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." - Matthew 6:34

Taking time to rest and recharge is difficult, but essential.
             "On God my salvation and my glory rest; The rock of my strength, my refuge is in God." - Psalm 62:7

There is a time and a season for everything.
             "There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven— A time to give birth and a time to die; A time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted. A time to kill and a time to heal; A time to tear down and a time to build up. A time to weep and a time to laugh; A time to mourn and a time to dance. A time to throw stones and a time to gather stones; A time to embrace and a time to shun embracing. A time to search and a time to give up as lost; A time to keep and a time to throw away. A time to tear apart and a time to sew together;
A time to be silent and a time to speak. A time to love and a time to hate; A time for war and a time for peace... He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, yet so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end." - Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, 11

At times we are supposed to support someone else's vision, even if it seems crazy.
              "Then Jonathan said to the young man who was carrying his armor, 'Come and let us cross over to the garrison of these uncircumcised; perhaps the Lord will work for us, for the Lord is not restrained to save by many or by few.' His armor bearer said to him, 'Do all that is in your heart; turn yourself, and here I am with you according to your desire.'” - 1 Samuel 14:6-7            
             "So it came about when Moses held his hand up, that Israel prevailed, and when he let his hand down, Amalek prevailed. But Moses’ hands were heavy. Then they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it; and Aaron and Hur supported his hands, one on one side and one on the other. Thus his hands were steady until the sun set." - Exodus 17:11-12

In all, above all, through all, and despite any emotion, love.
               "If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing. 
Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part; but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things.  For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love." - 1 Corinthians 13

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