Change of Direction

Life in Christ is never dull or boring. Those who find it boring are … boring.

I know what I’m talking about. When I look back on the times I’ve been bored there is a direct connection with the lack of interest in godly things and Jesus Himself. I cannot be bored when I think about Him.

My journey with Christ has never a straight one. There have been twists, turns and sudden changes of direction. I want to share a little about the changes in direction.

God is not agsinst comfort. He is against comfort being a barrier to Christlike development. In certain cases I have been in an established routine of life. Things were going well economically, materially and even socially. In that the chalkenge will come to change.

A number of those changes have been traumatic – in preparation, God did not promise comfort, He only assured me of His presence. For me, as I realised the nature of the changes, it became daunting for me. I certainly go in gung-ho. Often I needed a push in terms of distinct circumstantial shifts. People around me often had to speak strong to me to take obedience to God’s change seriously.

I can be slow on the uptake, but when I get it, I can commit myself to it, and realise that the outcome is the same as the process – growing in Christ and learning how to do and be everything pleasing to God.

That focus is a huge help especially when times get tough and there are whispers of how much better it was in the old days.  There are always perfectly rational arguments to return to the status quo. There can even be compelling reasons to stay as you are and not change, after all there is nothing to say that the change will leave us in a better position.  This is where that intense focus comes into its own and reminds you that it is not based on external factors alone.  Rather it is all about what God wants you to do.

When I worked for the YMCA, my boss gave me the liberty to trial a project called The Sanctuary.  The downstairs boardroom was also used for the weekly prayer meetings.  The layout of the room and some well placed touches made the place ideal to use as a location every so often for people to use for quiet and meditation.  It would not have been for everyone, but especially in an effort to get busy young people to stop and try something different, it was worth launching the initiative.

This was certainly a change of direction for me because everything in my spiritual upbringing to that point hardly ever touched on the power of silence or the beauty of meditation.  Indeed the joke was that even singing the song Be Still would get a room of church folk from my upbringing making more noise than ever before!  This was something new in terms of inviting people to explore spirituality and it was something new for me in almost every way.

I worked with my man Ray Feeney – a stalwart disciple of Christ – who likewise wasn’t from a Christian tradition that believed God could do anything in silence and stillness, and meditation was also not high up on the agenda.  Yet he encouraged me and stuck with me in the initiative and we launched it … to an overwhelming dud.  Few people attended The Sanctuary in the first session and the numbers hardly moved from there.  We kept it going, though, and maybe the actual real change that it brought about was in Ray and myself.

Everything on the surface had said that the change of direction was the wrong one.  Only dribs and drabs were coming in and little appeared to happening.  The deeper reality, however, was that the longer we persisted with it, the more we appreciated the power of silent reflection on the Lord.  The more the practice and purpose of silence became more apparent to Ray and myself.  It also had a good effect in terms of other projects we were doing, and some of those dribs and drabs came in through ideas we got through the time of silence we had.

The whole YMCA experience got me appreciating the little changes we could make in people’s lives and so I was hugely appreciative for what God brought about even through a change that appeared to fail.

It might be uncomfortable, it might appear unorthodox and others may not understand it or appear hostile to it, but there is a great reward in being obedient to God in making the change and that reward is that closer, deeper, richer and more vivid relationship with God.

Proving again that life in Christ is never boring.

For His Name’s Sake

Shalom

dmcd