It once was a yard. The lap that cradled a home. A place where children could play under the shade of big magnolia trees while the breeze shared the lemony scent of the huge white blossoms. Now the chainsaws and bulldozers are hard at work cutting it all down and clearing it off. Turning the tree filled home place into a mini mart, or a gas station, Or an addition to the school buildings . . . or a parking lot.
It makes me sad every time I see trees cut down. Especially big trees that have grown for decades, only to be destroyed in a few moments by a man with a saw. Does that make me short sighted? Complacent? Resistant to growth and change? Does that make me stand in the way of progress?
I don’t think so. I know that not all progress is good. It depends on the direction you’re going. Sometimes it’s easiest to make progress when you’re headed toward the wrong goal. Not all growth is good. Cancer is a growth. Not all change is good. It depends on how it changes. Rust is change. So is decay.
I want to have the right attitude toward progress, growth, and change. I want to have the wisdom and courage to support them when I should, and reject them when it’s right to do so. God help me progress toward your kingdom. Help me to grow in my relationship with Jesus, and change into the likeness of Christ.
Not that I have already attained this – that is, I have not already been perfected – but I strive to lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus also laid hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself to have attained this. Instead I am single-minded: Forgetting the things that are behind and reaching out for the things that are ahead, with this goal in mind, I strive toward the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
– Philippians 3:12-14 NET