Spring is in the air! Warmer temperatures this week and it’s time for the time change! Unless you happen to live in Alaska or Hawaii we have to change time this coming Sunday morning the 13th/14th! We “spring ahead” and most of our electronic clocks do this automatically, but we will go from 2 a.m. to 3 a.m. and get one less hour of sleep. When I was Pastor at my church I always got a chuckle out of the people who forgot or didn’t know and showed up when the service ended!
I remember working overnight shifts several years ago in my chaplaincy training. I just so happened to get both the Saturday nights when the time changed in the fall and in the spring. It is so weird to stand at the clock and watch the time go backward to 1 a.m. or forward to 3 a.m. It always seemed strange to me we could just reach up and grab our clocks and change the time.
Sometimes in my life I’d love to go back and change certain decisions! Other times I want to go forward and control how things turn out in my life and those around me! I know we can’t do that but I still want to! Like you I wouldn’t mind if time stood still or maybe I could have more control over things?? This industry of healthcare is always changing, our personal lives are changing as our children grow up and we realize we are getting older. People pass away or move away and life seems to always hold some change.
The Good News of our God who loves us is that God never changes. Life may change, healthcare work may change, but God never does. The Bible says in Hebrews 13:8 “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.” God isn’t just stuck with us at 2 a.m.! God longs to “move us” forward! God longs to renew and refresh us daily! We are forgiven! We are loved! We can have peace, hope, joy and all that God offers.
I pray for that renewal in our VDC movement across the globe, literally. God is doing a mighty work in our midst and we must follow Paul’s mandate in Philippians and “press on” rather than always look backward. Change can and should happen, and it’s good, its’ God! May that renewing, refreshing grace of God bless each Secretariat and all that have attended a weekend, especially those who think they need it the least.
The time change cues us that spring is in the air! I love springtime with flowers budding, trees getting their leaves back, and sunshine and warmer temperatures. As God renews the earth this season how much more God longs to renew and refresh you and me! May we be renewed today in hope, in peace, in the joy of Jesus in our midst and that all things are new.
Peace,
Pr. Doug
VDC National Spiritual Director
Eric is our current Webmaster and works on the NLS Communications Team. Raised in Judaism, he found Christ and the New Testament at age 16 in a Southern Baptist Church. He searched many denominations for the real church, only to find the Holy Spirit is present in all of them. He's worked for One for Israel, a group of native Israeli believers who are sharing the gospel in the holy land in Hebrew and is part of the only Hebrew speaking seminary in Israel.
