The last two posts have been about change (here and here). This post and the next are intended to wrap that up for a little while. This one shifts our focus a bit, and the next one will get practical about how you and the church you’re part of can successfully help people make needed changes. After that, I promise I’ll find something else to discuss…at least for a while!

You hear it all the time, “So and so just hates change.” Whoever ‘so and so’ is, it’s simply not true. No one hates change. At least, it’s too simplistic to say that people hate change.

In their book Switch, brothers Chip and Dan Heath remind us that people freely choose change all the time. Think, for example, about the choice to get married. It’s like asking to have your whole world rearranged, but people wholeheartedly make that choice all the time.

What about having a baby? Ask any parent if that changes things and get ready to witness a good, deep belly laugh. Babies change everything, but, presented with the choice between sameness and babies, people keep on choosing babies.

What about changing jobs? One of my shepherds at church recently made a career change after 27 years. To leave behind the same office, the same schedule, the same everything you’ve been used to for that long is a huge risk, and while I’m sure he had a lot of trepidation about that choice, the fact remains that he did make it.

From big stuff like job changes, babies, and weddings to little stuff like trying out that new place instead of eating at the old place, everyone chooses change–at least certain changes. (About the image at top: When was the last time you saw someone talking on a cellphone that resembled Zack’s from Saved by the Bell?) The idea that people (or even certain people) hate change just doesn’t hold up.

The examples above also show that it’s not the scale of change that frightens us either. People choose changes of all sizes. We choose little ones more often, but the big changes are the ones that bring us the most joy and satisfaction.

So what is the difference between a hard change and an easy change?

If we don’t hate change, how do you explain all the times we do try to avoid it?

Answer: We don’t resist change. We resist loss.

Going back to the story of Abram, the hard part of God’s call was the word “Leave.” Abram had to let go of what was familiar, what was near and dear before he could obey the other command to “Go.” Doing so meant the beginning of a whole new chapter in the Story of God, but still leaving meant loss.

And loss is hard to accept.

In Matthew 19, a man with a lot to lose walked up to Jesus, asking about eternal life. Before this encounter, by anyone’s estimation, he would have qualified as a good, righteous man. He was honest, faithful, and loving. At the same time, he knew something was off; something was standing between him and God. He asks, “All these [commands] I have kept. What do I still lack?”

What do I still lack?

That’s a huge question.

And a huge assumption.

This man who has so much assumes that coming near to God means gaining even more. He pictures himself as an empty vessel that needs to be filled with the right insights, the right ethics, the right habits. In truth, though, he is not an empty vessel. (None of us are.) He is a vessel filled with things both good and bad, and so the process of spiritual transformation requires not just gaining but also losing.

The man is looking to find out what he lacks –what else he can gain–not what he needs to let go of. On this occasion, however, Jesus tells him he needs to lose. He invites the rich man to sell all of his possessions. Then and only then will he have room in his life to follow Jesus.

Put yourself in that man’s shoes. In that instant, what would have flooded your mind? Thoughts of the awesome opportunities sure to come your way if you follow Jesus? Or thoughts of terror at being asked to sell everything?

I for one would have been terrified. I would have replied, attempting to clarify, “No, no give me one more thing to add on; tell me what’s missing, Jesus! Give me another commandment or bit of wisdom.”

But Jesus knows what we need to hear. The one thing we lack may be the courage to face loss.

“That’s a lot of vodka boxes,” she said.

Yes, yes it was.

In the weeks before this, Jessica and I had discerned that God was calling us to launch ClearView as a brand new church. After six wonderful years at Southern Hills, it was time to pack up my office and clear the way for whomever and whatever God has in mind for that group of his children next.

Jessica heard that liquor stores (not exactly our natural habitat) would give you really sturdy boxes for free, and so one Friday night a couple weeks ago we drove around to, I think, five different stores, taking every box we could find.

Packing up, at least for me, was an important ritual. I gave myself the freedom to linger over certain items as I came to them: the certificate of ordination the elders presented me with on July 3, 2004, printed materials that marked various milestones for the church or for me as a minister, encouraging notes that members had given me over the years (Thank you! Those mean more than you’ll ever know.), and even some less than encouraging notes I kept for one reason or another over the years. I would say whatever prayer was appropriate for each item and then place it into a box or into the trash.

Many hours after we started, Jessica (who did all the real work while I was “reliving the moments” like some character in a Hallmark movie) totaled it all up.

Six years of congregational ministry equals 68 vodka boxes of books, files, and knick-knacks.

Who knew, right?

Seminary taught me a lot, but where to get good boxes–it left me on my own for that.

Also, I don’t think seminary taught me about transitions like this, nor that it could have. I am sure that in more than one course we talked about pastoral care, ministerial transitions, and the importance of calling and discernment, etc, etc. But 68 boxes are sufficient to separate reality from theory.

Boxes like that are definitive, and what they say is this, “Your life will never be the same.”

That’s the hard part of change. The underside of starting something new and exciting is walking away from what’s familiar. Saying yes to something new means saying no to something else, and, because God is so good, often that something else is something very, very good.

The story of Israel begins in Genesis 12 when God comes to a man named Abram (not yet Abraham) and says, “Go to the land I will show you.” God invites Abram into His plans, His story. ‘Awesome’ doesn’t quite cover it.

But, actually, that’s the second part of what God says.

The first part is this, “Leave your country, your people, and your father’s household.”
The story of Israel begins with God asking a blessed man to walk away from those blessings. The pain of this loss is seen in the increasing levels of intimacy described:

“Abram, I want you to leave your nation…and your clan…and your family. Now go…”

The call to “Go” we like. The call to “Leave,” well that’s another matter.

One lesson Abram’s story teaches is that we celebrate God’s blessings in our lives by holding them loosely. Abram trusts God more than God’s prior blessings.

Closing the office door, we were also closing a chapter in our lives, a chapter where we had built so many great relationships and seen God at work in countless ways. Given that we were married only weeks before coming to Southern Hills, it was an even more important chapter: the first chapter of life that was “ours.”

But God is honored when we trust him and not his blessings. Sometimes that trust just looks like a bunch of vodka boxes.