Going Through Changes

“

Everything was going right, the prime of my life
I was doing the best, I've ever done, I've ever did
Then I started going through "Changes"

”

Those are the opening lines to William Murphy’s Changes. I remember those words like yesterday and I get lumps in my throat. How apt they were. The world seemed to crumbling around me at what was and –please God- is no doubt the toughest period of my entire life. I had left college and had got a job almost immediately with a personal office. I looked forward to everything I could and wanted to be in life and then.. bang! The gun went off.

My point is it wasn’t a good time in my life. How could everything go so wrong all of a sudden? What was God doing? I was sure something was wrong, what I didn’t know was who was it wrong with or where was it wrong from?

So when my friend sent me the link to the song, boy did I get the message. Tess had taken every opportunity to tell me I needed to change some things about my personal life and the way I reasoned but hey, I was me. I knew what I was doing. I had it all figured out. I had an answer for every question. I attended church more than any one I had ever met. So I was very quick to shrug her off every time.

I look back now and what my life was is actually the only way God could have got my attention. I wasn’t going to stop or listen to anyone else anyway other way. For me to go through the changes I had to go through, I had to pass through what I went through.

How many times do we ignore the gentle voice that says ‘turn’? How many times do we silent the voice that says ‘change’? How many times do we insist on the power of our reason and our ‘tried and trusted’ paths rather than try the new? How many times do we play Peter and reject the uncleansed items to stay in our cozy Jerusalem and passed up on the opportunity to play Paul to go into Rome and Greece? Get the gist?

Open mindedness isn’t the most common virtues of ‘churchers’ and Christians I’ve ever seen. We know the schedule of services off by heart. We know what’s going to happen. Mehn, we even know the most anointed men of God and have preferences of who will lay hands on us (as if that’s even necessary). What if we need to change? What if the old ways are good ways but not the best ways?

Personally, I feel lucky I got God to force those changes on me but will everyone be so lucky? Why not yield so it won’t be forced on you?