DAILY DEVOTIONAL – November 15th, 2019

“Got Change?” 

Prayer:  God, we worship You because You are God; the only Unchanging One, the only One who is perfectly faithful to His Word.  Thank you Lord for Your faithfulness to us, even as You hung on the cross for our sins.  Amen.

Scripture: Psalm 1:1-4

Blessed is the man
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
² but his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.

³ He is like a tree
planted by streams of water
that yields its fruit in its season,
and its leaf does not wither.
In all that he does, he prospers.
⁴ The wicked are not so,
but are like chaff that the wind drives away.

Devotional – “Got Change?”

There was a man who had 4 sons.  Wanting to prepare his sons for adulthood he sought to teach them a valuable lesson about life that he had learned.  He wanted to teach them that life isn’t about individual moments, life isn’t about particular accomplishments or failures, it isn’t about position or power and, ultimately, that life was something much bigger than just the sum and average of your days lived out on earth.  Living somewhat secluded in the woodlands and living off of the land, the father thought to use the seasons as a tool in his teaching.

He decided to use the seasons themselves to show his sons that though a season is needed for healthy crops, seasons brought significant changes, and how that season is handled greatly effects and directs the success of future seasons.  At the same time, he wanted to teach them not to be too quick to judge things by their immediate appearance; that each season, though individually significant, is only part of a much larger and longer life.

So the father sent each one of his sons out, one at a time, into the wilderness to find a particularly distinctive fruit tree that only he knew about and that he used to retreat to in prayer throughout the year.  He sent each son out during a different season of the year in order to find the tree.  Each son was instructed to take notice of the details of the tree and it’s condition.  Most importantly, the father insisted that his sons say nothing to their brothers until their father brought them all back together at the end of the year.

So the father sent one son in the winter, one in the spring, one in the summer and the last in the fall.  The journey to the tree was such that each son would be gone for at least a couple days.  He hoped the time they spent alone would bear some fruit as well.  Finally at the end of the year, once the last son had returned, he gathered all of his sons together and told them he had sent each of them to find the same tree and asked them to share with him and one another what they had seen and to describe the tree that they saw in order to see if they had all successfully accomplished the mission.  Playing on his sons’ competitiveness, he was eagerly anticipating the back and forth he knew would happen.

The first son that went in the winter said it was ugly, bent and twisted.  Nothing much but sticks.  The second son who went in the spring was confident his brother failed and found the wrong tree, saying “no, no brother…it was full of green buds and full of a promising bloom.”  The third son who went in the summer disagreed with them both and said the tree was full of blossoms and the smell of its sweetness filled the air.  The last son who went in the fall also disagreed and said it was ripe and dropping with fruit.

Calling a cease fire to their arguing, the father explained to them that they had all in fact found the right tree.  Each description was correct at the same time because each son did not see a different tree, but the same tree in a different season.  He taught them that though the tree looked markedly different in each season, it was still the same tree.  Though in winter the tree was bare and stagnant it would soon go through a radical transformation that would bear sweet fruit, but the tree was still the same tree.  He taught them that where they were at now in their life was only part of a much bigger picture yet to be finished.  They too would go through many seasons of change, but who they were and the faithful principles their father instilled in them must stay the same.  He taught them that a tree or any crop would never be able to bear it’s full fruitful potential without the ever changing seasons, and that it was only the strong roots that never changed that allowed the tree to endure through the seasons.  He taught them that it was only at the end of a life that the true value of that life can be most fully seen for what it was throughout all seasons.

What a powerful object lesson this father taught his sons.  And it’s true isn’t it?  Where you and I are right now is not where we were a year ago nor will it be where we are in a year from now.  Or at least we hope not.  We may have the same job, the same house, the same routine…but where we are now, is not where we were…it is not where we will be.  However, our ability to endure through each season and how we endure through each season very much influences where we find ourselves in the future.  Much like the fruit tree in our story, where we are rooted and how deeply our roots go will greatly affect not only how we experience and thrive in the season we are in, but also the experiences we will have in the seasons yet to come.

Much like the judgement of the fruit tree was not determined by appearances, or any one season or any one of the sons’ descriptions, so too our life as Christians is determined not just by where we have been, or where we are…but also by where and by what we are rooted, how we weather the seasons of change and ultimately how we finish our race.

If there is one thing that is certain in this life, it is that nothing is certain.  Change is the only constant.  As has happened time and again throughout history, what we think we know and understand about science and math and history and culture will all change.  It’s hard to believe, but it was only in 1977 that home-computers first became available.  Only 4 years later in 1981 the first laptop computer was introduced.  Now look at us today!

Change can be scary.  Change can be helpful and/or hurtful.  Change can be reinvigorating, or it can be exhausting.  Change can be a lot of things to us, but the one thing change will never be, is consistent.  Change won’t change.

I think what makes the seasons of change in our life so difficult and scary is the unknown.  We know things will change, but we don’t know how or when or why or what new realities change will bring.  Unless you are deeply rooted, the winds of change will leave you bruised and battered and will blow away all of our joy and happiness.  Having deep roots is important, but even the deepest roots will be uprooted in the winds of change unless they are found to be buried in the right soil.  If the ground in which you plant your roots shifts with the wind or is unstable…then so are you…and then you’re no less subject to the unpredictable winds of change than a fallen leaf.

The only consistency that exists in this life or the next, the only solid ground that exists in which we can confidently plant our roots deeply, is the Word of God, God Himself and in His Son Jesus Christ.  Living this life rooted in the Word of God, reading, and meditating and living in His Word both day and night as our text says in Psalm 1 is the only hope we have of enduring the seasons of change in life and the only way that we can bear good fruit and thrive even in the driest of summers and the coldest of winters.

Everyone and everything in this life will change…many times.  God, however, says in Malachi 3:6, “For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed.”  And Hebrews 13:8 says that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.”

Since the very first sin in the Garden of Eden, God promised that He would provide salvation in a son born of woman.  Despite sinful mankind’s rebellion against God and His grace, despite the inconsistency of our love toward God, God’s love for us never wavered in the least.  As God continued to promise through the His prophets, despite our sinfulness God would remain faithful and unchanging in His mercy, and as promised, the Word of God itself became flesh in Jesus Christ and saved us from sin and death by dying in our place and rising again to give us new life.  And that Risen Lord Jesus says to us in John 15:5, “I am the vine; you are the branches.  If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”

No matter the season or the changes we go through, by God’s grace through faith in Christ our salvation is secure and we remain the children of God.  Stay rooted in His love and His Word my friends, and remember, that God has forgiven yesterday, is with you today and has already taken care of tomorrow.  Amen.