Embracing change
2023 is A Rocha’s 40th year. It is also a year of change. As a trustee of A Rocha International, I was on the panel interviewing and selecting a new leader. We are grateful for God’s guidance and favour in Ed Walker’s appointment. As we engage the coming opportunities, open doors, victories, likeminded alliances, pushbacks and challenges, we are ascending, one step at a time and celebrating every step into our heritage.
Some people are comfortable with change; others less so. Either way, we are sojourners in this life and change is inevitable. As believers seeking continuing growth in holiness, we are invited into spiritual, physical, social, mental repositioning and transition. In embracing change and in being alert to God’s prompts, we can thrive.
1 Kings 18 tells the story of Elijah’s stand against the prophets of Baal and Asherah on Mount Carmel. In obedience to the Lord, Elijah presented himself to the king, Ahab. The land was in the third year of a terrible drought and in thrall to false gods. As the only one left speaking for the Lord Almighty, Elijah boldly tells Ahab to summon the idolatrous prophets to end the question of which god to follow. As fire from the Lord consumes not only the sacrifice but the wood, the stones, the soil and the water, rain starts to fall. Elijah tucks his cloak into his belt and runs, so fast he overtakes Ahab’s chariot. A new season dawns for Elijah, the nation and the world.
Elijah, knowing the time had come for the end of a drought both in the physical and spiritual realms, invited a posture of obedience and surrender to flow with what God was doing. Since the Lord does not hide his commands from us, he is bold and unapologetic in changing our seasons – for our good and for his glory, and he does not seek our permission. At the fullness of time, he resets, and we are best when we align wholeheartedly with his will.
Equally, we should be bold in cooperating with God. Elijah, because he is so confident the Lord is on the move, confronts Ahab without hesitation, and in confronting hundreds of the prophets of Baal, sets up the stage for the display of God’s power fully assured that God will be God. Like Elijah, we must pray and call upon the Lord for God-sized interventions. God will not only prove that he is God but additionally, he will send rain.
May we hear his commands – in fact, seek his commands – so we can fulfil, with grace, all that he has for us, each season, this season, walking with intentionally cultivated sensitivity with the Lord, each season he allows.
Florence Muindi
You may also be interested in:
