Jeff Adams

From Berlin Wall

A friend and her husband saw those words on a bumper sticker recently. I love it! Most of us don’t like change and many of us fight it, but it is indeed inevitable. Change is one of God’s “growth agents,” designed to prompt us toward growth. Sadly, many of us dig in our heels and waste precious opportunities to grow.

Yesterday I was musing about sources of truth in our lives and the need to expand our frame of reference as to how God communicates with us. God is, of course, the ultimate Source. Everything stems from him. He is truth and he reveals his truth. He has revealed himself through the scriptures and through Jesus the Christ. He also reveals himself through creation and conscience (Romans 1 for example).  The Bible gives further insight into ways God communicates his truth – not in contradiction of or, in addition to the Bible, but in confirmation of his truth revealed.

Sometimes, our focus become myopic and we fail to see God’s truth reflected in all of the many ways suggested by scripture itself. We fail to see God’s truth in creation, in others, or even in our own innermost being or conscience. Why see the world in black and white when we can see it in color? Snapshots are great, but it’s also great to own the whole DVD in HD.

Grace is another element of growth that I mentioned yesterday along with truth and time. Again, God is the ultimate Source. All grace originates with him. Just as with truth, God disseminates his grace in various manners, though all grace is traceable back to him.

Two powerful passages explain how God uses us to minister his grace to each other – Ephesians 4 and 1Peter 4.  Could it be that God wants to give you a measure of grace, but you fail to see it because he is using another person to give it to you?

Circumstances, people, situations, crisis, change, problems and challenges – when our objective is growth, instead of seeing all of these factors as enemies, we can search for God’s truth and grace in them. With time, we begin to experience the growth that God desires for us.

Change is inevitable; growth is optional. Got growth?