The More Things Change...

...the more they stay the same.

We have been through a lot in the brief time we've been in ministry.  Good times, hard times, lonely times and joyful times.  The more I see and experience, however, the more I realize that things are not so different from one church to another, and things are not so different from the struggles of the early church to the struggles of the modern church in America.

However, no matter what a church is going through, or what I myself am going through personally, we must be diligent to press on, and look forward to the path ahead.  It can be so easy when times get tough to look to the past, to the "good ole days," and wish everything was back to the way it was.  But this is exactly what the Israelites were doing when God was trying to deliver them to the promised land.

"Then all the congregation lifted up their voices and cried, and the people wept that night.  All the sons of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron; and the whole congregation said to them, “Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would that we had died in this wilderness!  “Why is the LORD bringing us into this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become plunder; would it not be better for us to return to Egypt?”  So they said to one another, “Let us appoint a leader and return to Egypt.”  

Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces in the presence of all the assembly of the congregation of the sons of Israel.  Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, of those who had spied out the land, tore their clothes; and they spoke to all the congregation of the sons of Israel, saying, “The land which we passed through to spy out is an exceedingly good land.  “If the LORD is pleased with us, then He will bring us into this land and give it to us—a land which flows with milk and honey.  “Only do not rebel against the LORD; and do not fear the people of the land, for they will be our prey. Their protection has been removed from them, and the LORD is with us; do not fear them.”  

Numbers 14:1-9

God had delivered them from slavery.  And they thought it would be better to return to Egypt and die there than to press on to the land that God had promised them?  It looks and sounds crazy to us now, but the reality is, we do the very same thing.  "Oh, if only this hadn't changed, or we had just stuck things out there, or done that instead..."  And so on and so on.  It's your typical, everything is greener on the other side (or in some cases, in the past) mentality. 

But I am trying very hard not to look to the past, or to the way things were, and pine for those times.  Because God has called us to new things, and new places.  He has called our friends to different cities, and it is hard not to wish that they were still here.  And although I cannot see what lies ahead, I am trusting in His timing and His plan.  

So instead, I am looking forward, and am continuing to strive to be the Godly woman that God is calling me to be.  And I am not going to give up on God's plan, or think that we need to return to the way things were, because I am trusting that God has an amazing plan for us and our family.  I will strive to live by the words of Paul to the Philippians:   

 ^"Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.  Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.  Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, have this attitude; and if in anything you have a different attitude, God will reveal that also to you; however, let us keep living by that same standard to which we have attained.  Brethren, join in following my example, and observe those who walk according to the pattern you have in us."  Philippians 3:12-17