This is my command—be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid or discouraged. For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.

~Joshua 1:9 NLT

When change arrived, my wife and I weren’t quite ready.

The Change

We knew the time would come when we’d have to care for our aging parents; we didn’t think we’d have to care for three at the same time. Things had worked out, so we could buy a home next door to my mom and stepdad. But when my mother-in-law could no longer stay alone, there was no place for her to go except to move in with us.

As she prepared for the move, she gave away and sold things to family members, friends, and neighbors—things she would no longer need and things we had no room for. Still, when the movers came to load what remained, the furniture and knick-knacks filled almost a twenty-six-foot truck. She still had almost as much as we had when we moved several months before. Thankfully, we had a carport to store many of her things.

My wife pulled the van into the driveway as she brought her mom to her new home. The moving truck pulled horizontally behind our driveway. But when I instructed my wife to move the van over a bit so my mother-in-law would have room to get out, she backed a little too close to the moving truck. When she returned the van to drive, it moved back a little before moving forward—enough to crash into the moving truck.

I gasped as I heard the crash, saw the crushed hatch, and watched the shattered glass as it lay all over my mother-in-law’s clothes, which I had carefully placed in the rear of the van. Another fly in the ointment of this already stressful moving day.

All worked out well in the end, but the crash—and the resulting headache of getting the vehicle repaired—provided just one more spoke in the wheel of the change we hadn’t fully prepared for.

The Lessons

And that’s the thing about change. Even when we know it’s coming, we can’t fully anticipate all it might bring. We thought we had prepared for my mother-in-law’s move-in but quickly discovered many things we hadn’t anticipated.

I’m sure Joshua experienced the same. He had been Moses’ right-hand man as Moses led the formerly enslaved people through the wilderness toward the Promised Land, but suddenly, he was the man, and Moses wasn’t. Moses had disobeyed God, and the consequence entailed God taking away the privilege of leading the people into their new homeland.

Change comes whether we invite it or not—and whether we want it or not. We sometimes initiate it, God often brings it—or, at least, allows it—but we have no control over it most of the time.

Trust in the LORD with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take.

 

~Proverbs 3:5-6 NLT

What we can control is our response. Joshua accepted the change and sought God’s wisdom and guidance as he moved into his new normal. We must do the same.

If we’ve made an unwise change, God will move us through it—although he probably won’t take away the consequences. Yet, even with the consequences, we can learn valuable lessons. When God brings it, he has a purpose. Even when he only allows it, he promises to work everything for our good when we respond appropriately.

Change will come. When it does, it will change us for the better or worse. The choice is ours.

Let God guide you through whatever change you face so you can grow spiritually and be an example to those around you.

Father, when change comes, guide me through it and make me a better person for experiencing it.

Genre: Non-fiction

Copyright 2024: When Change Arrived: Martin Wiles: All Rights Reserved