clinging

In a season of change, it’s easy to cling to what we know… What feels safer, because it’s familiar… 

For the child of God, it’s very rare that His calling and leading in our lives will take exactly the same form all the days of our lives. This doesn’t mean the He is fickle, it just means that He is alive and active, and we have a real relationship that is dynamic and growing. And how and when and where He leads us is personal and full of His lovingkindness towards us.

We don’t receive our marching orders and then just get to go and do exactly that in the same way always and forever. That would be more like programming a machine than having a loving Savior intimately involved in every detail of our lives weaving together a beautiful story of redemption for the world.

Some matters of calling are woven into our identity, even before birth, and are just as present our entire lives. But the form that they take, shifts as things like the need and times and relationships and context around us ebb and flow.

So much for so many of us all over the world has changed in the last year in ways most of us never imagined.

In matters of calling and identity where the Lord has clearly spoken, called or confirmed, we can be confident. But the form that it takes, will most likely change.

If I attach my identity to the form of my calling, instead of to the actual calling and the Person who does the calling, then I can easily be shaken when things start to change. And when things shift and change, when we start to feel unsteady, we grab for something to stabilize us. What we need is something, Someone, near and sturdy. What we sometimes cling to though, is the very thing that is changing… That needs to change. That should change.

Seasons are built into the very rhythms of the world, into our very lives. This doesn’t make our place unsettled or unsure. It’s actually a sign of health, of growth, of life. 

Clinging to what is enduring and eternal enables us to weather the changes of seasons. It gives us hope that transcends the temporal. It reminds us we are not the ones in control but that we can trust the One Who is.

If it seems like you are losing something now that He genuinely called you to before, which many of us are, know that the Lord is not confused. His calling was sure before, and it is now. But it was not attached merely to a specific form for all time. It’s a process that we’re in together with Him to see how and where He will lead next. Always for our good and His glory.

So what are we clinging to? To Him Who alone is eternal and so wise and full of lovingkindness? Or to my own system that I think needs to happen to keep His plan going forward?