ChaNGe iS gOOd......EveNtuALLy!

How many times have you heard those three words? They're probably voiced by someone who isn't currently enduring a fresh hell like you are. Even millennials say "I don't like change." I wonder what those that have successfully endured the trials of life think about this cliche. Will they attest to the idea that change is good? Hmm, I wonder.

As I type these words on my keyboard, I am going through a change that has completely rocked my entire world. It's hard for me to look at you and tell you that it's good. It doesn't feel good. It doesn't help me produce good thoughts. And it doesn't sound, smell, or taste good. And still, in some weird dichotomous mix, it could actually be good for me. And thus, the struggle comes in. The struggle is indeed real. I am enduring a trial.

Almost everything inside of me screams "Quit", "Give up", and "Run, Forrest, Run!" The isolation is unbearable. The loneliness is unthinkable. The people that are closest to you, in some attempt to give you space, or just to avoid catching what you have, tend to leave you to your own thoughts and devices. They leave you alone. One thing I learned from the last 21 years is that being in isolation makes you an easy target for your enemies. 

If you ever watched an episode of "Wild Kingdom", the lion, who is dubbed the King of the jungle, is arguably the jungle's apex predator. He's fast, cunning, determined, and rarely backs down from a fight. What he wants, he normally gets. The lion will maul his way through difficult challenges to achieve his primary goal: his next meal. Even this terrorizing and imposing wildlife figure understands timing and opportunity. He will lie in wait in a nearby bush and will watch an entire herd of buffalo moving through the plain. And true to form, there will always be a smaller or weaker buffalo languishing behind the rest of the herd or perhaps hobbled in some way that makes them appear vulnerable. The King of the Jungle leans forward, sets himself, and pounces on his unsuspecting prey. The same pattern. The same result. Every single time.

Your adversaries don't work any different. Your being in isolation just makes the kill that much easier.

I asked the question in one of my previous pieces "Going Through Something" how do you go through something standing still and never changing or evolving or growing? Repeating the same useless patterns and expecting all the other factors to change but we don't is ridiculous and unrealistic. But we do that, don't we? It's near miraculous to get in a torrential downpour and not get a little wet. In everything we go through in life, we are affected. The questions are how much and if we grow while in the process.  

What do you do when everything in your world is going topsy-turvy? What do you reach for? How do you implement an adjustment? From my own limited experience, God is the only source that does not change based on circumstance.

Hebrews 13:8 says "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever." 

Short passage but so profound. In the midst of life's storms, it's wise to hold onto a stable source that does not change or is not influenced by people's opinions and can't be bought off for power and status.

Are you GOING THROUGH or have you stopped to take lay down and never got back up?

I feel like I've been through a series of consecutive gut-punches but I can't stay where I am. The changes you go through are designed to make you strong, not to destroy you.

"Because he knows the road on which I travel, when he had tested me, I'll come out like gold." (Job 23:10 ISV)

Fire burns but it also refines.

• Even if they lie about you....
• Even if they discuss you in unfavorable light and mock you among their friends....
• Even if they make it their life's work to destroy you....
• Even if they leave landmines where they know you have to daily walk....
• Even if it seems like you're all alone and no one cares about your pain....
• Even if you just don't feel like you can take anymore and you want to give up....

"...all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose." (Romans 8:28 NKJV in part)