The winds of change are blowing at the Crihfield house.

Oh, I suppose they are really blowing at everyone’s house. Things do change, all the time. In the news I hear my company is likely going to be bought. I also hear they are going to lay off thousands this year alone, and while in the past I had a lot of interest from lots of managers for me to come and work for them, they are all gone and like Joseph my current boss is one who does not really know me anymore. Things change.

Here in our midst things change – our elders get more elderly, our young children become young adults. Folks move in and we’re blessed with them, folks move away and we miss them. I still get the occasional stern reminder that I am a “newcomer” here, even after 12 years. (I guess some things will never change.)

Unemployment goes up and down. Personal wealth goes up and down. Job security comes and goes, along with apparently consumer confidence. We read the papers and perhaps wring our hands a bit, those of us who’s responsibility it is to provide for others. Things change.

Yet many things stay the same. I’ve noticed the trees in my back yard continue to grow regardless of political or economic changes. The seasons come around about once a year, the sun passes overhead once a day. In this time of change there are some things that simply remain the same.

So many people are lost – and while the need for reapers is no different than it was yesterday or will be tomorrow, it seems to me there is a growing trend to consider God in our lives, the rock which cannot move. When everything you pin your security on: our jobs, our property, whatever – begins to shake and sink, don’t we by instinct seek the higher, safer ground? People are doing just that, and we must be ready. That may mean we must change our own ways and our own ways of thinking. Things change.

It is always true that we need to grow, to learn, to love. It’s also true that we need to eat. If truly dire economic times settle on us, and we return to the days of our grandparents and great grandparents who muddled through some tough years, we also must learn to open our hearts and our cupboards to one another. We will have opportunities to “let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me” by loving our neighbors enough to feed them and to teach them like never before, on an intimate level we never experienced. The “change” will be when everyone stops rushing around because there’s nowhere to go and people start looking at each other over kitchen tables. The greater this hardship, the greater the opportunities we may have. Things change.

After hurricane Ike, there were places in Texas that didn’t have power. Right away, in various neighborhoods, people drug their grills out into the streets and started sharing what they had. No one knew it was going to be a whole month, and I suppose folks could have hoarded their vittles to feed their own hungry mouths. But instead they showed a genuine affection for one another and there was enough for everyone. I know that some churches offered to send money down to the saints in the hard hit areas, and more often than not the answer came back “we’re fine, we don’t need it.”

That was winds of change, hurricane force winds, and people were neighborly in spite of, or better said, because of, the calamity. Yes the winds of change are blowing. Again, with change comes opportunity. Will you ride the winds to higher places? Or just be blown away. Think about it.

Randy