As we step into May, I’m excited! My birthday is May 14th. My Grandmother, Florence Walton, and I shared that birthday. My granddaughter Selah also shares that birthday! I won’t be around to see it, but maybe Selah will have a grandchild that shares our birthday too? I think it would be AMAZING!
My Grandmother and I celebrated our birthday together often. But so far, Selah and I have not had that privilege…. UNTIL THIS YEAR!!! Robin and I will be traveling to Missouri for our son Michael’s Master’s degree graduation, and we are staying a couple of extra days so Selah and I can celebrate our birthday together! I don’t know what we’ll be doing, but it will be fun!
My Grandmother lived through a lot of changes… From horsepower (real horses) to automobiles. From the Wright brothers first flight (she was 3) to seeing Neil Armstrong walk on the moon! This lady, who saw her first airplane as a teenager, was alive when the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded. She lived through 2 world wars, rationing, and having a son sent to war. She lived through 16 Presidential Administrations, and heard countless politicians make promises. She taught school, grew children, gardens and chickens. Her generation was flexible!
My generation are now the “Grandmas and Grampas.” We’ve seen a bit of change ourselves. We’ve just recently seen 3 men and 1 woman go around the moon and return safely to earth. We, like my Grandmother, saw John Glenn walk on the moon and saw the capsule splash down days later. We have owned cars that had to be worked on almost constantly. Now we drive cars that don’t need sparkplugs changed for 100,000 miles. Many in my generation have raised kids, some of us have raised gardens, but most of us haven’t raised chickens. We’ve lived through 11 presidents, and we’ve also heard countless politicians make promises. We used paper maps to navigate, but that is now in the past. We saw (or read about) computers that took up whole rooms and used electricity in gigantic amounts. Now we carry one that is so much smarter and faster in our back pockets. We took naps in kindergarten, and maybe even first grade (more for the teacher than for us!). We remember Richard Nixon’s impeachment, and Jimmy Carter’s gigantic smile. We remember Ronald Reagan’s challenge to the Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, to “tear down this wall!” Some of our generation went to the Persian Gulf to free Kuwait from Iraq. We lived through the Horror of “9-11” and some of us saw our children go to Iraq and Afghanistan.
This list could go on, and on… What my Grandmother had to adjust to and what I’ve had to adjust to are a lot different. But there is one constant…. CHANGE! Our world is constantly changing. But you know what hasn’t changed, and won’t change? The Word of GOD!
As we live lives of constant change. There are those who think God’s Word must change too! The woman, pictured to the left is a “United Church of Christ Bishop” named Yvetter Flunder. I watched the video, and she said exactly what was printed, and then some. This kind of heresy needs to be called out! We can count on God’s Word. It stands unchanged. Our Lord and Savior does not change either. Hebrews 13:8–9a Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Do not be carried away by varied and strange teachings; for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace. Jesus doesn’t “change with the times.” His Word can’t be ignored because “it just doesn’t fit the times!” In fact, it is even more important because it doesn’t change! The Bible is a constant, in a sea of shange. A lighthouse that guides us to God.
So, look to the Lighthouse! Cling to the truth that is found in the Bible. Even if you are reading it from the computer in your pocket!
Navigating change, right alongside of you,
John
