February 25, 1960. A huge snowstorm has Nashville covered,
and the city pretty much shut down. The top 20 playlist has everything from
Percy Faith and Mark Denning to Dinah Washington, Marv Johnson and Lloyd Price.
JFK took office just a month ago. At 6:18 am, Frances Mills has a baby boy,
kicking and screaming with a mop top of red hair. (Me, not her.)
A lot has
changed since then. Snow hardly ever falls, but we do get slush. The Top 20
playlist is so homogenized every song sounds the same. We lost JFK before he
even finished office, and Vietnam went into high gear. As for me, I don’t kick
and scream so much as stand and groan. And the hair? Definitely not red, and unless you count my back,
not nearly as much as before.
Things change. It is the way of life. CS Lewis remarked
that we are made for both stability and change. God shows us change by the
seasons of the year, but stability in that they follow in the same order. (In
Tennessee, that is sped up somewhat from yearly to weekly!) To not change would
be to not grow. To not change would be to not live.
Our Christian life is the same way. We start at the
beginning as children, learning from and leaning on Jesus for our every need.
As we start to take our own steps, growing in our faith and knowledge, we begin to stand separate from, but still with, Him. Our problems begin (and this is a
universal problem with us) when we think we have reached completion, and can
hold our own with God. We no longer feel we have to grow or learn, and think we know
everything we ever need to know.
Children of God, we will NEVER reach that point. We are
of Adam’s seed, and we will always fall short of God’s glory. We will always
need to rely on His guidance, not ours. Our mission is not to judge others who
do not match the qualities we think we have achieved, but have not in reality.
Our mission is to love others, faults and all, just as He loves us.
Yet there is, just like the seasons, stability in our lives
as well, and that stability is in God alone. His love is never ending. His Peace passes
understanding. He is steadfast, faithful and true. All love comes from Him. He
is love, He is goodness and He is light. If our goal is to grow into His likeness, then our
path is to love. Love others, all others, as He loves us. To do less is to deny
the truth of God’s love. To judge others, is to pass that same judgement on to
ourselves.
We must continue to grow in knowledge and love, and
continue to depend on our Savior as little children. The older we get, the more
we need to remember the child in all of us, and others. Love, grow, forgive.
Love.
