New Reminders: Change
by Ardith Hoff
Some people fear change, it implies that things will be different and that somehow threatens the status quo, the predictable, our ability to be in control of our lives. Even a sudden, unexpected change in the weather causes us to have to alter our plans. Deep down the fear seems to stem from a fear of loss of original identity, a substitution of one thing for another. It causes some people go to great length to resist change, or to even deny that it is happening. Yet change is inevitable, and the ability to adjust to change is essential to living a fulfilling life.
Travelers who hadn’t checked their email the night before departure, got a rude awakening when boarding the MSG Meraviglia on December 16, 2023. The cruise ship was scheduled to leave the wintery chill of Brooklyn, New York for warm sunshine in the Bahamas. Citing “unseasonable and rapidly worsening weather” the itinerary was changed fewer than 24-hours earlier so the ship went north rather than south. Passengers who had packed for beaches were now confronted with the cold of their new destination in Canada. While at their port in New Brunswick, temperatures dropped to 15 degrees – 65 degrees cooler than the expected temps of 80 in Grand Cayman. CruiseIndustryNews,com, 12/21/23
Imagine how some of the passengers responded to the big changes. Some were angry and expressed their displeasure openly, vehemently the whole cruise and tied to enlist others to demand a reverse of fortunes, no matter how impossible. We humans seem to want to have our way, no matter what. Some of us need to learn again and again, that it is we who need to adjust, not that the world needs to adjust to us.
Yielding our will to the will of God and learning to make the changes necessary to be in compliance with HIs will is the only way to fulfil God’s plans for us. He has shown us the way and even when things do not go as we might have expected, He has promised to guide us and bring us into His saving grace. It is up to us whether we resist and make ourselves and those around us miserable, or accept the changes we are offered and live in peace, content in the knowledge that Jesus died for our salvation and all we have to do is to believe and accept God’s offer to not only change us, but transform us into a new creature, reborn of God. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.” Proverbs 3: 5