Time is a train...

Suddenly, Lent is here... Where has the time gone? How has it suddenly got to Lent already? I mean, Christmas has only just finished hasn't it - at least, it feels that way - given that my feet have hardly touched the ground since then.

Yes, I know Easter is early this year... which means the gap between Christmas and Lent is shorter than usual... and the fact that I've spent most of the last six weeks with a cold, cough or some other sort of ailment probably doesn't help either. But the problem really is, time does not stand still. To continue the U2 quote from the title, "Time is a Train, Makes the Future the Past" -- and nothing stands still.

So how do we respond? Apart from throwing our hands up in despair complaining about how fast time is passing, or burying our heads in the sand, refusing to accept that things have moved on that is?

The paradox of it all for me is that this ever-changing, ever-moving world was created and is sustained in its ever-changing-ness, by the eternal, unchanging, ever-constant God. "Yesterday, Today and Forever, You are the same, You never change" we sing - and yet His world changes, irrevocably, second after second...

I often think that we, as Christian believers, as the church, don't manage to hold these two things together very well. Often we assume that the unchanging nature of God applies also to our structures, our organisations, our patterns of worship - as if to change the way we do something - even down to the agenda of a meeting - can be seen to be denying the fundamental nature of God.

And then, as the world around changes, as society changes and our expectations change in light of it, we forget the timeless truths of who God is, and who we are as His children - and jump wholeheartedly into the latest thing... Even when we adopt a change for the right reason, we sometimes (often?) throw the baby out with the bathwater and abandon anything related to the old, however good and Godly it was in the first place?

Is there an easy solution - I doubt it, otherwise better minds than mine would have come up with it years ago. But as a guideline, we (and by we, I really mean I) need to remember both sides of the "paradox" -- and when something new comes along, reflect on it in light of the timeless truths of God... and remember that, although He doesn't change His people never still stand.... just like the ever ticking clock!