Imagine being on the way home and there is road construction. Your normal route is blocked; you have to find a new way or you won’t get home! This change is thrust upon you and you must react.
External or circumstantial change—you know, the type of change that we aren’t responsible for— provokes us to react, doesn’t it? It demands a response whether we are aware or not, willing or not. A route change is an ‘external change’ for you. You might prefer the old route, but it’s blocked, or gone. You might prefer your old haircut or office or preacher or news anchor, but they are gone, and you must respond.
On a Larger Level—
Personal forces are tampering with life around us. People, nations, organizations and industries are strategizing ways to move forward that will affect us in some way; we react, respond, and ultimately, we adapt. Likewise, the dark forces on earth, Satan and his followers, are busy altering external reality in a way that tempts, provokes, and undermines us. We must react, respond or adapt to this as well. It is a daunting, and from the individual perspective, unpredictable dilemma! Finally, in the midst of it all, there is a sovereign God (Father, Son and Spirit) and fierce, devoted angelic forces doing more than all the above combined; they are sustaining, resisting, holding things together, inspiring, calling, building, strengthening from within and without!
We hear and see or we don’t. We respond and join in (or we don’t). We embrace what is good and we agree to “change” in some manner (what the Church calls sanctification), or we resist Him.
We are embracing someone or something and we are resisting someone or something. And all these choices influence not just how we handle change, but whether we ourselves are changing… whether we are becoming like one divine being or the other.
Change— what do you believe about it? Is your response positive, negative, or neutral? Do you lean in or shy away?