Faith Challenges ...

Friday, May 13, 2011. There was a time when life seemed to be a life of big changes. We have moved from Germany to England. The whole family had to settle in a new environment. New schools for the kids. A new workplace. New colleagues, collaborations. Things were challenging, we needed to find a new balance for the family finances, had to find a way to match income and expenses. We needed to set the goals right, to make sense of it all. Also, we needed to find a new church, a new house group, find friends and also put our own gifts into action in the local community.

Calm Times or Rapid Change? …

There are times when change seems to dictate our speed, when the external circumstances basically control what we do. But there are also calm times, when everything seems to be static, not moving, set for eternity. That can be good or bad. When I am looking for a partner, but nothing is moving, then this is not a good thing. But when I have a nice income and that seems to be secure, we think it is good.

But it is not only change which can dictate our daily activities. Also in calm times the routine can control what we think and do. Calm times an be a challenge as well, perhaps of a slightly different type. When you are in a secure, but busy job, all your time and effort can be absorbed into it.

A lot of families in our environment seem to be more in the calm period. They are well settled locally, have lived there for quite a while, own their little house and are struggling with the typical challenges of life, with things in the job, with kids in school. But then, this routine can be interrupted by sudden illness, by rapid changes in the company, by more severe problems of the kids. The static times then seemed to be an illusion only, a plateau which was only temporary.

Always living with him …

“Who finds his life, will loose it”. This sentence of Jesus always comes to my mind when I think about the calm times, where our job and our life fully absorbes all our capacities. When you fully succeed in your job and it basically determines who you are - is that not this “finding his life”? Do we loose the insight into the truth that life is more than success, that there is a deeper fulfillment than the riches of this world?

God is there in the times of change as well as in the static times. He wants to be our Lord, our hope, the content and ultimate goal of everything we do. Calm times are a chance, to learn, to take time to be with him, to approach goals we know to be his goals. There are always many challenges in this world, and opening our eyes for the people around us, will move us out of the comfort zone immediately.

When we open our heart for God's heart, he will fill the calm times of our life with his goals and his view, and prepare us for the times of change, which are bound to come anyway. ... more texts