Change is Hard
Joe Principato / Video Ministry Coordinator
Leading up to 2022, I have definitely felt a push towards something new, something different, and I have this sense that this year is going to upturn my life in some pretty dramatic ways. There’s been a lot bubbling under the surface over the last year or so and I feel like God is going to move BIG in 2022.
That’s the mystery that holds me so close to this faith. I consider myself Christian, yet I find that the more I learn about this Jesus guy, the more I realize just how little I know Him. I can sit here and actively profess my faith in the Living God that is Jesus Christ, and still be worried about what’s to come in the future. It's hard knowing that change is coming. If I’m honest, I’m relatively comfortable and I have a pretty good life. Can I really say that I have the same amount of courage as Peter or Matthew did, to drop everything I know to follow Jesus? These are questions I ask myself daily. I work at a church, I’m what you consider to be a “professional Christian”, yet I still have to wrestle with myself daily about whether or not I’m going to continue to follow Christ and His callings.
These blogs tend to get pretty deep for me, so I’m sorry if you were hoping to read something a little more uplifting and encouraging, but I will leave you with this. If I didn't believe that Jesus is who He says He is, and I didn’t believe that He’s in complete control of the future, then I would have stopped following Him a long time ago. Change is hard, yes, but it’s easier knowing that you don’t have to go through it alone.
I have some ideas of what that may look like, but if I know God, I’m sure that whatever this big change is, it’s going to surpass any and all expectations or ideas I may have. I mean, that’s what He’s all about right? God makes massive plays through super unexpected means. We just celebrated Christmas, the story of how God came down in the flesh, to a dirty feeding trough, practically making pariahs out of a young couple in the process. Yet with that, He provided a way to save all of humanity then, now, and in the future.
Change is hard, and often quite destabilizing. All throughout scripture the disciples were having to uproot their entire lives to follow Jesus. Simon Peter leaves his family to travel abroad with Jesus, who is the Son of God, yes, but is also a homeless vagabond. Or Matthew Levi, who leaves a comfortable job to also travel with Jesus, along with a bunch of people who actively despise him. For what? Why? Because this Jesus guy touches a cripple and heals him, we’re supposed to drop everything? Just because He says, “follow me”? I’m not buying it. No, there has to be something more to Jesus for perfectly comfortable people to essentially throw away all common sense and go follow Him.
Change is hard, and often quite destabilizing. All throughout scripture the disciples were having to uproot their entire lives to follow Jesus. Simon Peter leaves his family to travel abroad with Jesus, who is the Son of God, yes, but is also a homeless vagabond. Or Matthew Levi, who leaves a comfortable job to also travel with Jesus, along with a bunch of people who actively despise him. For what? Why? Because this Jesus guy touches a cripple and heals him, we’re supposed to drop everything? Just because He says, “follow me”? I’m not buying it. No, there has to be something more to Jesus for perfectly comfortable people to essentially throw away all common sense and go follow Him.
That’s the mystery that holds me so close to this faith. I consider myself Christian, yet I find that the more I learn about this Jesus guy, the more I realize just how little I know Him. I can sit here and actively profess my faith in the Living God that is Jesus Christ, and still be worried about what’s to come in the future. It's hard knowing that change is coming. If I’m honest, I’m relatively comfortable and I have a pretty good life. Can I really say that I have the same amount of courage as Peter or Matthew did, to drop everything I know to follow Jesus? These are questions I ask myself daily. I work at a church, I’m what you consider to be a “professional Christian”, yet I still have to wrestle with myself daily about whether or not I’m going to continue to follow Christ and His callings.
These blogs tend to get pretty deep for me, so I’m sorry if you were hoping to read something a little more uplifting and encouraging, but I will leave you with this. If I didn't believe that Jesus is who He says He is, and I didn’t believe that He’s in complete control of the future, then I would have stopped following Him a long time ago. Change is hard, yes, but it’s easier knowing that you don’t have to go through it alone.