Change is a difficult thing.

Change is a difficult thing. But it's also necessary. In fact, if you aren't changing it's a good sign you are dead or well on your way to being there. Much of what we have talked about in our current series at Ridgeview involves change. Rearranging your life around your values. Making more productive use of your time. Eating better, exercising more. Making a budget and learning to live by it. Realigning your life around the principles that God has for you. All of these things require change. But change for the sake of change is no good. And temporary changes can be just as bad.

As you and I move through the steps of this journey, we are challenged to rearrange our lives around two significant facts...God is God and we are not and He, alone, knows what is best for our lives. As we are moving through these changes, we will find that it's not easy. Good things seldom are. But they are possible. It requires a simple modification in our understanding. You and I aren't making changes for God; we are making changes through God--through His power and His presence. When we rely too much on our own will and not enough on Him we relate very well to Paul's' words in Romans 7:22, 24: "For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body.... What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?"

We are moving forward as a family. God is bringing positive change that will make an eternal difference for our lives. But this change won't "stick" if we don't rest completely in God. It is a perfect mix of us joining God in the work that He has already begun. I love the words of Augustine, the early Christian saint:

"Indeed we also work, but we are only collaborating with God who works, for his mercy has gone before us."