No move is complete without a little…actually A LOT… of unpacking.  The moving truck arrives and the boxes start coming off.

The inventory is checked…

The unpacking begins!

And life goes on as change moves in.

Yours may not be a military family, but embracing change is a lesson for all–it’s a part of every family and every life, regardless of where we live or what we do.

Accepting change is my offering to God:

So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering (Romans 12:1, The Message).

…even if He chooses to pack my life up on a moving truck and ship our family 4000 miles across the globe.

There’s a part of me that wants to keep snatching up some aspect of my life off of the altar of sacrifice.  There are areas in my life I still want to control.  I think that’s why moving is challenging—I have to wait in faith as God enables me to feel at home, find a church, make friends, help kids get connected, and so on.   Too often, I wait in anxious unease, as I get settled in a new place.

This is the unease of one who has jumped off of the altar, struggling to rest and trust in the midst of change.

Instead changing things in one or two areas of my life, all of a sudden change becomes a constant of my everyday life, as the outward trappings of life are whisked away by the moving truck.  On the other end, our household goods show up, but the process of moving into a new experience in a new place takes much longer than arranging the furniture, painting a room, or hanging the pictures.

When I get settled in our new house, I make many of the decisions…I have the power of choice…and I like that kind of control!

Other aspects of getting settled in a new place take time and God’s providing grace.

They don’t carry the essentials of life at Walmart and you won’t find them in any mall, no matter how many stores it has.  Contentment, peace, relationship, connection, faith, and trust can’t be packaged and they won’t arrive in the mail. The all-important, intangible components of life are gifts that only God can provide.

The all-important, intangible components of life are gifts that only God can provide.

When I truly place my life before God as an offering, available for His plans, purpose, and timing, I can let go of my desire to get everything worked out the way I want it as fast as possible.  When I decide to wait with faith and embrace what He has for me here, I open the doors of resistance and truly lay myself down.

In our last move, I sensed that God spoke to my anxious thoughts: Submit to change. He was telling me to stay on the altar and let Him do something new in my life. We cannot fully experience the benefits of change without first letting go of what has been left behind.

Whether or not I submit to and embrace the changes God has brought into my life, they are here.  Embracing what God plan, cooperating with faith and grace, is the obedience of remaining on the altar.

Through the sacrifice of resistance and control, I place myself in a position that frees God to do His greatest work in me, transforming me from the inside out–address change and all!