I have reconsidered. I don't like it at all. Change always looks so exciting when it is on the far horizon, and then it gets up close. And then it is scary.
Do you realize how many phrases we have that reference change?
- just around the corner
- over the hill
- just around the bend
- over on the other side
- standing at the crossroads
- time stops for no man
- turning over a new leaf
Anne of Green Gables always looked at the bend in the road with such eagerness and anticipation, reminding herself that just ahead lay "a new day with no mistakes in it." I would like to be more like Anne sometimes.
More than an optimistic adage or the foolhardy notion that change would always bring improvement, her attitude toward the future signaled faith. You see, I always imagine something beautiful on that far-off horizon, something ideal. I always imagine. And then I get to to the turn in the road, and it is just an ordinary turn in the road. Yes, I am older and wiser. I have been blessed on this stretch of road. But it is still just a dirt road, and I am still just me.
Even though I know I can hear God calling me from around the bend-- even though I know that He stands beyond the bend say, "Come, dance with me. Find joy in the plan I have for you," still I cling to the familiar things. I mourn the things that I cannot take with me around the bend. And I, recalcitrant and foolish, say to the One who loves me: "I only just realized why you put me here! And now I must--I must continue onto another path?" At this close range, it is difficult to imagine what might lie ahead. The one thing certain is that it is not rosy ideal painted by my imagination when I was beginning. It is reality painted in the mind of God before the beginning (Eph. 1:4-10 ESV).
So I must have faith and take His hand when I cannot see the way ahead . . . .
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