“If we don’t change, we don’t grow. If we don’t grow, we aren’t really living.”
~ Gail Sheehy
There is something ingrained in each and every one of us that prompts us to desire something different, something better, in our lives. We want that different, we want that better, but we do not want to have to change in order to get it. It is a great conundrum.
Because we loathe change, we often do anything necessary in order not to change. We all know where that leaves us though: stuck exactly where we are. We will never move. We will never get ourselves out of situations. We will never excel. We will never fulfill our dreams. As Gail Sheehy reminds us, we will never truly live.
Life is all about change: that nerve-wracking agent that helps us to blossom and grow.
Just as we need to embrace change in our daily lives, we need to do so as well in our spiritual lives. God calls us to constant growth and that implies constant change. If we are unwilling to step out farther in faith, we will end up becoming stagnant in our faith lives. We will end up merely existing, not really living.
When we embrace change, God will draw us closer to Himself. That closeness will cause us to take deeper looks at ourselves and see the necessity for even further change. That new change, then, takes us deeper and deeper into the mystery of God. We find our former ways of life to have been very shallow as we plunge into the depths of God’s love.
As long as we ask the Lord to be our companion, change need never be feared. Rather, embracing change, we will find that our lives become ever more exhilarating.
FAITH ACTION: Is there some change necessary in your life that perplexes or frightens you? Make a plan to effect that change and embrace the possibilities that come with it.