Tags
adjust, age old path, blessing, change, choose change, elephant, God, good fruit, herd of elephants, man and beast, resisting change
The construction crew had been working hard for just less than a year. They had a deadline to complete the construction within days and they were tired. The final touches and snagging were taking place… and the landscaping was in progress. The tennis court was a crucial element in the construction… it had to be ready before the big day because the owner of the building site had to play a game every morning. The compacting equipment was causing the ground to tremble giving out a low rumble … the laborers were briskly moving about putting whatever was needed in place
… Until they suddenly found themselves face to face with a herd of elephants.
Both man and beast froze as they looked at each other in shock. None seemed to know what to do next… the elephants had not expected to come through the brush and find humans… the humans had not expected the elephants to come around an area where the humans were so many….
Eventually the elephants turned and walked away….
Only to return a year or so later to walk straight through the gardens that were so well manicured by then. Fortunately they came through when everyone was asleep. Yes, the elephants had decided to reclaim their age old path through the Garden, and even though they were aware that it would not be comfortable to pass through during the day with all the humans moving about… they knew they would be relatively comfortable passing through at night, when the humans were at rest.
The elephants were resisting change. The human interference into their pathways in the Garden was not going to force them to change those pathways, and whenever they wanted to use them, they did… cautiously.
Elephants making their way through an age old path in the Garden
It is not often that we think of initiating a change in our lives, yet sometimes we do it, because we see something positive in the end. More often it is forced upon us. But when we do make the choice ourselves, we have hope that one day, at the end of the journey of change, we shall rest, and be able to say thank you to God for showing us the way and giving us the strength, courage, wisdom, grace to follow the way that He has shown us to the end. At the very least, we hope that we shall enjoy that wonderful blessing or result that draws us so strongly to the change.
Yet, change is never easy, and we usually spend every ounce of our energies fighting it or around it… even when we chose it ourselves. We fight the change by trying to do everything we can to make our lives run as they used to before we began the change… so the baby wants to stay still after being born, and the doctor has to shock her/him into action lest s/he die of suffocation…
Soon we reach the age where we are expected to start our own families. By this time our characters are set, our ways are set, and while we look forward to married life and a family, we so often do not understand the need for yet another change… to adjust to the character and ways of the one we have chosen to spend the rest of our life with. And so we begin to fight the change that marriage invariably forces upon us… even though we chose this change ourselves.
No… change is never easy…. But for those that persevere to the end, change can bear good fruits… and the closer one has been to God and the more one has involved God in that change, the better and longer lasting the fruits become.
If you are going through a change, stop now and think about the blessing that is within it… and the hope you have had about the fruits it would bear… is it worth it leaving this change now? Stop and ask God to guide you through it and ask that He clarify and strengthen your hope that He will bring you to bear good fruit and that He will give you rest, as you steadily walk ever closer to Him in His great and beautiful Garden.
Are you going through a change?
A beautiful sunrise is the change from darkness to light in the Garden
Come … walk with me in the Garden
Copyright © 2012. Ophelia Swai. All Rights Reserved.
We are in the Lenten period now, as human beings we fail sometimes to live accordingly, and so, in this period of Lent we are called to make some changes in our daily life, that is from bad to good, from what is against God’s will. As human beings we have intellect and will (the gifts from God) which help us to reason than elephants, though it is not easy to change but people are dynamic liable to change. Waw! we can learn more from nature. Thanks for a nice reflection in this Lenten period.
Let us protect nature it is for our wellbeing!