Changed and Changing

How quickly life can turn around. Today marks 7 months back in Glasgow. I am aware that I often make a point of marking the months that pass, building little signposts along the timeline of my life. And as I reach this particular marker I find myself reflecting on the yo-yo nature of my existence. Up and down, up and down. 

Things change so quickly. 

Lots of things have changed over the past 7 months - some good, some really not, some neither good or bad just changed. 

Today, as just another Monday - not as a specially signposted day - feels like a low point. One of those days when I realise just how far from God I've fallen without even noticing. A day to drag my bruised and grubby, sinful self back to the cross to deal with my mess face to face with the Saviour of my soul.

But today as a build-a-signpost, 7-month-marker tells a different story. When I view today as one wee point in a panoramic view of the past number of months or years all I can see is God's grace and the beautiful way that he weaves everything together for His purposes.

Life is so chaotically complex. We don't experience just one pure emotion in a single, momentary little box. We have all these thoughts and feelings and memories vying for attention, sadness over one situation competes with excitement about possibilities on the horizon, memories that bring a smile can in the same moment bring a tear of grief. 

From one minute to the next our whole world can change whilst simultaneously we are caught up in a much longer process of change as we are made new in God; shaped and moulded and refined to more clearly reflect Jesus. Changed and made new when we give our lives to Jesus, the old self passes away and we are made a new creation. But a new creation that is still being formed day by day.

In church language preachers often talk about "both/and". I'm learning that we live in a constant state of both/and. We are both changed and changing, and I am beginning to understand that we need to view life through a changed-and-changing lense. Not viewing today as a stand-alone entity but as one part of a much bigger picture. 

So today I do come back to the cross, with all my mess. But rather than coming in shame, I come knowing that God has been doing and continues to do a renewing work in me and that in His grace He is making me, day by day, more and more into the person He created me to be.