Nothing stays the same. Life is change... so, we are either moving forward or moving back. The real hope, then, is that we are heading in the right direction...
So, what do we do to ensure we are moving forward? What is your barometer?
I would suggest that we fight the urge to 'arrive'... that we resist the temptation to 'settle' or 'settle in'... mainly because there is no such thing! We tend to go backward when we stop moving forward.
For many of us (in our personal, professional or 'church' lives), routine is a welcome friend... a comfortable place where we can set up residence and just....
be.
But that is not how it works. The Bible is rife with warnings against complacency. Nature is full of daily examples of this truth - THINGS NEVER STAY THE SAME! Instead, when we stop progressing and settle in to our happy routine, we almost always become complacent and go backwards. We digress. We get lazy. Then we set up our own 'rules' and 'dig in' to protect our comfortable routine...
I know this from experience. I am there right now. I am stagnant and I feel like I am not moving forward... and that is a miserable feeling.... I know I (we) need to keep moving....
Don't misunderstand... and don't feel sorry for me... I am not despondent, and I am not miserable. But I am growing increasingly... I don't know.... agitated. The Spirit is moving in me, and I seem to be trying to resist, and I am not at peace... (have you ever felt like that? Is it possible that's the Spirit making you 'not at peace'?)
As a faith community, I am challenging us (me) at Riverside to continue to move forward... in our service, in our faith journey, in our outflow, in our worship experience, in our teaching, in our spiritual and numerical growth.... in every way.
I have said it before, and I will say it as long as God gives me breath:
(As a church AND individually)
It is not a grand enough vision
for us to know what we DON'T want to be...
We MUST (with the Spirit's guidance) develop
HIS vision for who and what we are!
May we allow the Spirit to continue moving us forward, without fear and without fight and without drawing our own 'comfortable routine' lines in the sand...
and may Almighty God defeat us if we 'dig in our heels' and resist the Spirit's leading.
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