DAILY DEVOTIONAL – February 4, 2020
“Adaptability”
Prayer: Lord Jesus, we thank You for the certainty of Your love for us, especially as we live in an unstable and volatile world. Draw us ever closer to You and let everything that is not of Your Truth fade into the background. Amen.
Scripture: 1 Corinthians 9:19-23
19 For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. 20 To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. 21 To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. 22 To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. 23 I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.
Scripture: Philippians 4:12-13
12 I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. 13 I can do all things through him who strengthens me.
Devotional – “Adaptability”
In his book entitle Hitting a Moving Target, author Rick Ezell tells the anecdotal story about two very well known and at one time hugely successful companies, both of whom have had to learn the important lesson of adaptability.
Travel back 50 years to the mahogany-paneled office of Sewell Avery, then chairman of Montgomery Ward & Company. Avery was responsible for Ward’s failure to open a single new store form 1941 to 1957. Instead, the big retailer piles up cash—and then sat on it. Ward’s amassed $607 million (even then a very large sum of money!), earning them a dubious Wall Street nickname: “the bank with the department store front.”
So why didn’t Avery join in the nation’s postwar (WWII) expansion by following Americans to the suburbs? He held firmly to the belief and vision that a depression had followed every major war since the time of Napoleon. “Who am I to argue with history?’ Avery demanded. “Why build $14-a-foot buildings when we soon can do it for $3-a-foot?”
On the other side of Chicago, Ward’s rival, Sears, Roebuck & Company, had a different idea. In 1946, Sears gambled its future and began a costly expansion into suburbia. Had another depression occurred, Sears would have been financially devastated. Instead, Sears doubled its revenues while Ward’s stood still. Sears never looked back, and Ward’s never caught up. In fact, Ward’s eventually went bankrupt.
How could corporate planning go so wrong? Montgomery Ward’s postwar troubles sprang from its firm adherence to an idea from a different time and culture. Because Sewell Avery thought a depression would follow World War II, and because he failed to see that middle-America was moving to the suburbs, he misread the cultural waves and consequently his business was wiped out.
Being moldable and adaptable is an important life lesson. Adaptability is not just a critical strategy for businesses and even churches to survive, but it is equally essential in our individual walk with Christ.
In both of our Scripture passages for today Paul is addressing adaptability. In 1 Corinthians 9, Paul speaks about the freedom we have in Christ. The assurance of our salvation and the unchanging truth of God’s Word that should give us the confidence to adapt and enable us to not only relate to those who do not yet know Christ, but even enter into their world. I can’t help but think of how Christ regularly left both His own disciples and His enemies speechless as Jesus went into the homes of prostitutes and sinners in order to eat with them, get to know them, and all for the purpose of delivering to them the Good News of the Gospel. Of course, Jesus never sinned and never compromised His faithfulness to God or His Word, and neither should we ever use our freedom in Christ to go against what He has clearly revealed in His Word or against conscience. At the same time, if we learn anything from an honest reading of Scripture, if we are following Christ and are open to His calling and direction, adaptability will be a constant theme in our lives as disciples.
In the passage from Philippians 4, Paul is focusing more on how he has had to personally adapt to a wide variety of situations in life as a disciple and follower of Christ. There are times when God may bless us abundantly, and times when He may lead us into the drought of a barren valley. As is commonly said, “change is the only constant in life.” Changing relationships, changing jobs, changing homes, changing families and finances, changing technologies…and not to mention our ever changing sinful hearts and fickle emotions.
How is it that we are to keep our sanity and remain faithful amidst such furious change? Paul tells us, “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.” Christ is the only unchanging One. He is the same yesterday, today and always. Christ has promised to be with us always and to the very end of the age. He knows better than Paul and better than you and I what it means to want and have plenty, what it is like to feel completely out of your element, what it takes to resist temptation and celebrate victory. When Christ remains our all in all, in all circumstances, then being able to adapt and find victory in any situation is not so hard because Christ has already won the victory for us on the cross.
Another word for being able to adapt is to live by faith; to live trusting in God’s unfailing love and His perfect plan even though we may not know what tomorrow will bring, how we will get there or when He will ask us to change direction, leave our comfort zone or have our hearts and minds opened to something we could have never possibly imagined.
When we know the Risen Lord Jesus and how He loved us so much He left heaven to give up His own life in our place on the cross, then we have nothing but joy and all confidence to say along with the prophet Isaiah in chapter 64:8,
“But now, O Lord, you are our Father;
we are the clay, and you are our potter;
we are all the work of your hand.”
Well, thanks for joining me again for another daily devotion. Remember, that God has forgiven yesterday, is with you today, and has already taken care of tomorrow. Amen.
