Growing Through Change

“Life is change. Growth is optional. Choose wisely.”   This is a quote by an anonymous source, and I find it not only fascinating but also fitting with camp.  Life at camp is not just change, it is constant change.  Every week I am in a different state, a different bed, a different cafeteria and working with a different small group.

Life is full of changes.  When I return home after camp, I'll be swept through another series of changes, as my sister packs up and leaves for Honduras, as I head back to school for my senior year of college and as my little brother joins me, starting his freshman year.

I think we all understand and can see that life is full of changes. 

Growth, however, is optional.  We can walk through life and never allow ourselves to soak in the lessons we've learned.  We can avoid truth and not let the Scriptures have an affect on our lives.  I was listening to our camp director talk to the students this past week at campfire.  He encourages them to start applying what they've learned at camp the day that they arrive at home, or else the things they've planted in their heads at camp will never grow to maturity.

I started to question whether I was doing that. Do I take what I've learned each camp week and apply it to my next week of camp, or do I file it away for "another time".  Do I allow myself to grow as a person while I'm at camp?  Do I let the changes I go through push me to be more Christlike? Or do I avoid growth and personal change?  Do I put off till 'after camp' what I could be doing right now?

Change is meant to spur on growth. 

This week, my girls have been amazing.  I have time to simply enjoy being their small group leader without worrying or frantically redesigning and restructuring small group times.  This week could swing either way with change. I can choose to sit back and enjoy my week without allowing myself to be further sanctified or allowing change to produce growth.  This is the easy way out.  Or I can use the 'extra' time I have to seek God in even greater ways and to desire sanctification even more.

Are you allowing the changes in your life to produce growth?  Or are you watching as the change drifts by and you remain the same?

May we "be transformed by the renewing of our minds" (Romans 12: 1) so that we can be "sanctified in the truth, God's Word is truth" (John 17:17).