go on or go back

They've changed facebook. Again. Each time I get used to it, they make some changes. I suppose I will be used to them in a few months, perhaps I will even like them. After all, I now prefer the 'new' facebook to the 'old' one, and wasn't that a shock when it first happened!

It's just a picture, a snapshot of what six months can do, how perspective can change through use and the passage of time. The things that were odd become normal, the things that were unthinkable become possible, the things that were normal become old-fashioned, foreign, unacceptable. Call it growth or call it backsliding - it works both directions. Perspective changes as we interact and see things differently, and those interactions change us.

"I'm not who I was" is a brilliant song by Brandon Heath. As time continues to pass, the words and especially the sentiment of this song become more and more relevant to me. Life is not just one transition - from pre-birth to birth, from pre-Christian to Christian, from child to adult, from un-married to married. In actuality, life is a series of such transitions, in various orders and having various combinations of transitions.

Where we so often go wrong, especially as Christians, is in some how believing that once we are 'saved' or baptised, have gone through some other ritual or learned some important lesson, that we are somehow done. In reality, life is a journey in which we leave the old behind and learn to accept and embrace (or reject and resent) the new. This process leads either to growth and development, or down the proverbial slick slope into the bitter, the backward and the base. "Resting on laurels" isn't really an option. Just like our muscles - when used they strengthen and expand, when neglected the weaken and shrink - our maturity level can never be stagnant.

We don't have the option to stand still in life. Change comes, for better or worse, though God can work all things for good. We must either strive to grow through interaction with that change, or allow ourselves to atrophy through misuse, stubbornness, bitterness or pain. The thing that we can choose is how we act and react, working together with God to bring good out of all these things.