To the uninitiated, my birthday's coming in a week, and Christmas is just slightly under 3 weeks away. Blatant self-advertising aside, I'm going to advise you not to get me anything living as a present. Really, anything breathing or green should be struck off your lists immediately. My house is great when it comes to taking care of people, but animals are very much less lucky. We have had hamsters that died of either suffocation or pneumonia, fishes that either thought they could fly or believed themselves to be salmon; frogs that preferred an eleven story free-fall over captivity, and even my pet rock grew mould and fell out a window. Point is, my house doesn't grow creatures very well.

And it's a weird thing having living creatures in your house. Why? Because living things grow. And when they grow, they change.

It's a common saying, that "change is the only constant". Want to know why? Because we are alive. In a world full of dead things and people, nothing would change. The spark of life in our temporal situations are what fuels change. Things change because things grow.

On a side note, this is also why I think a zombie apocalypse would be survivable. The undead? They're, well, medically dead. So their bodies don't grow. So whatever damage they sustain will never be healed. Sun, rain, winds, we survive them because we can heal. Zombies can't.

Returning again to the point, growth always brings change. Sure, there are plateaus where we don't grow much, but those are the times we don't change much either. If I may drop some scripture on us, here's a verse from 1 Corinthians 13:11

"When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me."

That's what I mean. We grow, so we change; so we put our pasts behind us in order that we may look ahead.

Here's the thing, healthy life always means growth. A healthy 16 year old is growing. If a 13 year old teenager remained the exact size and shape, evidently something is amiss.

Same with our spiritual lives. If we are alive in the spirit, praying regularly, worshipping often; if our spiritual lives are healthy, then our spiritual lives are growing. If you've had a healthy relationship with God for 3 years you definitely won't be in the same mental, emotional, spiritual place you were 3 years ago. Life means growth, spiritual life means spiritual growth. Understand these implications on your personal walk.

Life means growth. And growth also means change. Which is also something we need to understand.

A stagnant ministry, a stagnant church, one without change, is one without growth. A church or a ministry that is alive in Christ will have growth. That is a given. Be it spiritual growth within the individual members, or physical growth in terms of worshippers in attendance, life means growth. And growth means change.

Personally, let me make it clear that I'm not a big fan of change. I'm a man of routine. I like my usual schedules, my usual tv shows (HIMYM, TBBT), my usual drink (fuji apple), and I don't like it when those change. I go to school by the same route every morning and go home by that same route. When something is committed to routine I don't like to change it.

But change is necessary. Because growth is necessary. Because life is necessary.

As do most of my posts, this one feels unready, unpolished, but I think the point is clear enough. Change isn't bad. Change is a sign of growth. And growth is a sign of life.

And life is good :)