Change is challenging

“The Lord said to Abraham, 'Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you.” (Genesis 12: 1). How daunting!

Sometimes, we are called in life to make certain changes. Sometimes even the thought of the change shakes us to the very core of our being.

Yet somehow, it has to be done. It was so for Abraham and Sarah as they stepped into the unknown of packing up their things and entering into a new land.

It was and has been so for many other Biblical charac- ters and people throughout history.

Change can be scary, but we need to face the challenge, not with fear, but with faith.

Many years ago I prayed regularly with a man much older than myself.

When I left to come to Grahamstown 18 years ago, he gave me a passage of Scripture found in Jeremiah 29: 11 -13: “For I know the thoughts that I think towards you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil and fear, to give you a hope and a bright future.”

He placed it in a picture frame. It stood on my study desk until the frame stand broke and I eventually packed it away.

But I was reminded of the same passage of Scripture recently, after facing my own challenges.

Sometimes we can choose our paths, sometimes we don’t get to choose, it kind of just happens, but we will be greatly strengthened when in such times we too will be reminded that God is with us and will help us when we seek him with all our hearts.

– Reverend Geoff Probert