BY WALT ALBRITTON
OPINION —
To live well, you must learn to cope with change. The most common truth about life is that change is a constant reality. It is forever foolish to wish that “things would never change.”
When I was born in 1932, gas cost 10 cents a gallon and a postage stamp cost three cents. Eggs were 18 cents a dozen; coffee cost 39 cents a pound. You are lucky today if you can buy a loaf of bread for $2.50 while in 1932, a fresh loaf of bread cost seven cents. For a dime you could purchase a cold glass of draft beer.
When I am tempted to complain about the rising costs of food these days, it helps me to remember how my parents described their life in 1927, the year of their marriage. Dad said, “There were days when all we had to eat was an onion sandwich, without mayo.”
As an infant, I was helpless, as all babies are. Mom and Dad changed my diapers while nursing the hope that one day I could dress myself. They patiently waited for me to learn to walk and eat onions all by myself. Their goal was for me to become independent, able to manage life on my own, no longer depending on them.
At age 18, I left home for college. My space was quickly occupied by my siblings. Years later, it dawned on me why my mother was crying the day I left for Auburn. Her life, her family, was changing. Things would never be the same.
For 10 years I tried hard to handle the “independent” way of life. Finally, I discovered it was a good way to raise a child but was not applicable to my spiritual life. Indeed, to “grow up” spiritually I had to learn to become dependent upon God. If parents and pastors had tried to teach me that, I was obviously not listening.
Slowly, I began to realize that God had designed me to live dependent upon him. I am hard-wired for worshipful dependency upon my Creator. Sin is the problem. Thinking I can live independent of God’s rule in my life is the highway to disaster. Sin is much more than getting drunk or dependent upon drugs, it is basically deciding to ignore God and live life “my way.”
God has a plan to rescue me from sin. That’s why Jesus died on the cross — to save me from my sins, from the delusion that I can live for myself. How does God do that? He informs me how I can be reformed by his transforming power. When I admit my need to be changed, God reforms me and begins transforming me into the likeness of His Son Jesus, a process that continues for the rest of my life for I am always “becoming” a Christian.
The efficacy of God’s plan to change me depends upon realizing that I do not belong to myself; I have been bought with a price, the precious blood of Jesus, so I belong to Him. I can depend on Jesus, to guide,teach, use and comfort me for His glory when my life is under His management.
Yes, our world is forever changing. But rather than complain about the problems that change brings, we can thank God that his life-changing power enables us to find hope and joy by placing our lives in his sovereign and gracious hands. That is actually more than coping; it is choosing to live by faith in God’s unchanging plan for his children.