Yesterday was an immersion in change. For starters, it was the switch to daylight savings time, so all of us were a bit “off”, trying to adjust to the earlier while pretending it was later. Then there was the ushering in of the warm spell that was going to mark our week of weather. As I traveled about, I encountered people on bikes, people in shorts, motorcycles, and those UTVs people use in the summer to jaunt short distances. Finally, the sandhill cranes returned to the neighborhood with all their warbling reminding me that spring was coming. Change was everywhere around me.
Like it or not, change was coming. As I took a “pondering break” midday on my porch, enjoying the beautiful weather and stillness, it dawned on me that I was in the beginning of Lent, a time of change, a time of personal change. And I complimented the LORD. He’d done it again. He’d gotten to me through the back door – seeing the change all around me – kneading my mind, body and soul with the images of change in anticipation of what I was being asked to do. “Got it, LORD.” I said aloud. “I need to change, too.”
Change really doesn’t come easy for me. I am a “rut person” who is so set in my ways. I do resist change. But that, the LORD reminded me yesterday, was the intent of Lent. I was being called to change, to turn daily to Him, to follow Him more closely, to love Him more deeply. And I looked at myself and my life and found several areas that I really could and should “shore up.”
As we age, we can get comfortable where we are. We can resist change. I know I do. But the LORD calls us daily to turn to Him, to give more of ourselves to Him. During the season of Lent, it is stressed, but Lent is not the only time for conversion, for the transformation only possible when we rely on our LORD and give ourselves over to Him and His will.
As we begin the first full week of Lent, may we all open ourselves to the change the LORD calls us to, the change of mind, the change of habit, the change of heart that brings us closer to our LORD and to the ones the LORD created us to be.
Until tomorrow, let us all love well.
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