Last Friday night, I said goodbye to some very good friends as they packed up and headed for Indiana.  I was one of the first people to meet Josh & Sarah when they moved to Asheville over three years ago, and they had become very close to our family, walking with us through Christina’s dad’s death, and the birth of our two children.  But now they are gone.  Sure, we’ll still be friends, but it won’t be the same…not at all.

Since joining with Kurt at Missio Dei, we’ve said goodbye to many friends.  Most have moved away from Asheville due to jobs and family, some have simply decided that church planting is not for them, and so they have left.  Every time it hurts.  I keep thinking it will get easier, but it never does.  They say that a church planter will eventually lose up to 90% of his core group (mostly close friends) over time, and for Kurt and I, we’re getting close to that number already, and it sucks.  But it got me to thinking…change IS.

In Exodus 15, Moses is leading the Israelites out of captivity toward the promised land.  They have just come across the parted Red Sea, they’re three days into the journey and they begin to grumble and complain. v. 24 “And the people grumbled against Moses, saying, ‘What shall we drink?’” Just a few verses later in Exodus 16:3, “and the people of Israel said to them, ‘Would that we had died in Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots, and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into the wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.’” Exodus 17:7 is the most telling though, “…they tested the Lord by saying, ‘Is the LORD among us or not?’”

This is a people who have been rescued from slavery, from certain death at the hands of the Egyptians, and all they can do on their journey is complain that it isn’t how it was.  Even though they were enslaved, they were comfortable.  This is hard.  They had food and water there, but now they are hungry and thirsty.  This isn’t what they expected.  They want it to be like it was.  But change IS.  This is a change for the better by far, but they cannot see it because they are so focused on how “good” it was then.  They can’t tell if God is even in this mess because it is difficult for them.

How often do we miss what God is doing because we are focused on ourselves and we’re resistant to the changes He requires us to make?  How often do we grumble and complain that things aren’t how they used to be, clinging to some sense of nostalgia, when the things that lie ahead are far better in the end then the way they ever were before.  Can we take the focus off of ourselves and our comfort?  Change is hard.  We often resist it at every turn.  But change IS, and if we truly believe that God is good and that He can be trusted, how will it change the way we see change?

I miss you Josh & Sarah, but I know God has called you away for a purpose, and I can’t wait to see what He’s up to!