Dear Friends,
I don’t know about you, but I can’t believe that we are already one-third of the way through this year. Time is flying past, and Spring has well and truly arrived. The beautiful arrays of colour that the season brings are everywhere, and thoughts are turning to summer and possible holidays. Birds are nesting, eggs hatching, and it is an exciting time of year with something seeming to happen in the garden every day. Things are changing all around us, and it gives us pleasure to see it all.
Not that change is something that we are always very keen on. Throughout our lives, we go through different seasons. Sometimes we can find it easy to embrace the changes a new season brings, welcoming it gladly, but at other times it can be something we fear, dreading what the change might bring.
How we deal with change depends on many things, but it is reassuring to read in the Bible, that Jesus never changes – He is the same yesterday, today and forever (Heb 13: 8). When everything appears to be shaking and changing around us, all the things that perhaps were at one time our security no longer seem so secure, yet in the middle of it all, Jesus is a sure foundation, a rock that doesn’t move. It does not mean that our life is suddenly made easy with no problems, but our security is no longer found in things that change from day to day, rather it is in him and his love.
I saw a birthday card recently – a butterfly was driving a sports car and had been pulled over by a policeman who was looking at the photo on the driving licence that the butterfly had handed him. The picture was of a caterpillar, and the caption read, ‘That’s an old photo’.
The word that the New Testament uses for ‘transformation’ is the word from which we get metamorphosis. The Lord is calling His Church to change, to be transformed. That does not mean we have to be fearful, but trust him to lead us into the new things he has for us. New wine requires new wine skins, and if we want to stay in step with the Lord, then we need to hear what he is saying and be willing to move as he prompts. The Lord is changing us through his Spirit, fashioning and moulding us for the next season that is coming. May God give us grace to allow him to change us so we are fit and ready for the new wine that is coming.
With love,
Jane