Are You Ready to be Changed?

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Axentowicz_The_AnchoriteWhen You speak, when You move
When You do what only You can do
It changes us
It changes what we see and what we seek*

Yesterday morning in church, I had to stop and reflect on the words of this unfamiliar song. It is an invitation to God to speak to us—the humble cry of a heart wanting to hear His Voice. I understand the deep well of longing for that Voice. God often seems so distant and silent—or I just need a Word of wisdom, encouragement, guidance in the moment—and I cry out for God to speak.

What caught my heart and mind in the lines above, though, was the subtle acknowledgment of the power unleashed when God does speak. I wonder, do we really know what we’re asking for?

Truthfully, I usually don’t want God to change me, but my circumstances. I want Him to make my life easier, to tell me what to do in a situation, to make my plans and dreams reality. I am so much like the crowds who pressed in on Jesus, wanting to be healed. I want to see—what I want to see. I want to walk—to go where I want to go.

Jesus is often willing to oblige. He heals lepers who walk away without a word of thanks. He gives sight to blind men who reveled in the beauty of the creation more than in the glory of the re-Creator.

But this song acknowledges that there is so much more power in Jesus’ Word. He not only makes me see, He changes what I see. I think of Elisha’s servant (see 2 Kings 6), who awoke in the morning and saw an enemy army surrounding the house; Elisha prayed, and God opened the servant’s eyes to the fiery chariots of God’s army that stood between them.

And He changes what I seek. Instead of fulfilling my plans and dreams, God changes them. Peter, a fisherman, was cleaning his nets after a fruitless night on the sea when Jesus told him to go back out. The nets began to break with every fisher’s dream catch…and Peter was changed, walking away from the fish to follow the One who created the fish.

The Creator re-Creates; the Spirit breathes fresh breath; dry bones walk; blind eyes see; old is made new; the dead live again. Are you ready?

*”Spirit of the Living God” by Vertical Church Band

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