Food had always been the greatest need in the Glenview. Despite the fact that those that lived there often referred to it as “The Village of Corn” there was never enough food. The farmers in the area simply farmed the way their parents and grandparents farmed. The harvest had been poor in the past and it continued to be poor every year. Harvest time was always a time of disappointment and even fear as there was no certainty that there would be enough to last through the winter. One day a small group from the capital visited the village. The Mayor met with them, and he was inspired by their message. He introduced them to the village.
“Good people… (very long mayoral pause for effect) these visitors are both kind and wise. They have come a great distance with secret knowledge of the art of farming, and they are willing to help us to grow more crops than we have ever seen before!”
Now these were words and phrases the visitors had never used but, yes, they did have knowledge that would help and even change the life of the village. However, because they were wise they also knew what challenges lay ahead for the Village of Corn. With the Mayor’s enthusiastic endorsement, the villagers accepted them into their community. The visitors surveyed the region, the soil, and the seed. They even spent time with the surrounding farmers to learn the local weather patterns and generally how they did the business of growing crops. Within a month of their arrival they asked the Mayor to call a town meeting to announce their findings. Instead, the mayor announced a holiday where…
“Our kind and wise visitors will bless our land and people. Join me as one on this day that will henceforth be remembered as the First Day of Bounty!”
The village came to the town square with eager anticipation of the good things that were to come. After some initial bluster and over promising, the Mayor turned the gathering over to the visitors.
“Thank you for your kind words, Mayor. We do want to bless you (interrupted by a rousing applause from the crowd), but I think it will be a blessing of a kind you are not expecting (applause initiated and sustained by the Mayor). We have been with you and learned how you plant and harvest. We’ve studied your soil and the seed you plant. Our conclusion is that you do not ever have to go hungry again… (Uproarious applause) if you adopt some changes to how you do things. (Applause dies quickly into the murmuring of confused farmers.)
“It is our conclusion that with some changes you will never have to fear the winter again. (The expected applause does not come.)”
“What kind of changes are you suggesting?” asked the Mayor with an air of concern.
“Well, rather profound change actually. You see the soil you have here is not very good for corn. We suggest that your staple crop become wheat (confused grumbling in the crowd). Wheat will grow here tall and strong. The kind of wheat we suggest is a kind you actually plant in the late fall, and it will be ready to harvest in early spring…”
The Mayor stepped forward and took back the stage.
“Thank you for your thoughts and suggestions. We will consult further and report our findings to you all soon. Thank you all for coming out today. You are all dismissed and enjoy the rest of the holiday!”
The confused and disappointed crowd shuffled off in small, frustrated groups. The Mayor warmly gathered up the visitors and herded them into his office.
“Whaddo you think you’re doin’? Wheat? Your big solution is wheat? I thought you were smart guys. I thought you were comin’ to help. If you hadn’t noticed, this is the Village of Corn! These are proud people with a proud heritage. We’ll be a laughing stock if the Village of Corn starts growing wheat. Planting wheat in the late fall? Do you think we’re country bumpkins – just a bunch of idiots? It snows here! If you plant wheat in the fall it’ll freeze, you fools. Your precious wheat will never sprout! I thought I could trust you. I thought you were coming to tell us about a new fertilizer or that we need to plant at night or something we could actually do, but this is outrageous! We wanted your help, but you want to come in here and change our very way of life – alter our very identity as a village. I find you all irresponsible and reckless. I need you to pack up and leave today.”
Because the visitors had been in this kind of meeting with other mayors before they knew that it was useless to argue. They knew it was useless to point out that the Village of Corn was poor and sickly and that slight alterations would not matter. They accepted the dismissal of the Mayor. They had, in fact, already packed knowing that this might occur, and they quietly started on their journey toward another village.
It didn’t happen in every town, but it did on occasion. So when they saw a single farmer secretively waving them into his barn, they quickly obeyed.
“What you all said back there…” asked the thin and nervous farmer, “about wheat – it’s true, isn’t it?”
The visitors assured him it was.
“This village, they’re a proud people and it’s too much change for them, ya know. They can’t do it. Me and my wife – we lost a baby last winter. Food ran out, and we all got sick. I’m not gonna let that happen again. I mean to do right for my family. Guess I lost my pride, but I’m willin’ to change if it helps us. You tell me what to change and I’ll change it.”
There is something about the human condition that is instinctively resistant to change. It’s in us all. We like the familiar and we fear the unknown. It has been my observation that most of us say “No” to change and pursue instead slight enhancements that are neither costly nor disruptive. Our life goal is therefore to want to do better than we currently are doing, or to put it another way, we want to experience success. It is my contention that this is a very low and unworthy goal.
In contrast to success, I would define change as:
“Willing to begin a process that will profoundly alter me in ways that I don’t fully understand.”
If you’re like me, this is unnerving. It smacks of some sci-fi movie like the “Body Snatchers.” It feels like I’m giving myself up to forces I won’t be able to control, and I’m not willing to do that. It’s scary. They make movies and write books about this. You trust a scientist to help you and you come out with two heads or you become a housefly, or worse, you become an over-zealous religious nut.
Here is what I propose: the person you turn yourself over to makes all the difference in the world. I would suggest that if your doctor lives in a dark castle and is obsessed with houseflies, don’t let him inject you with anything! If you come to know the good and loving, omniscient God who is revealed in the Bible, this is who you can trust.
I’ve come to the conclusion that the very premise of the Christian life, the kind of Christian life Jesus displayed and encouraged in his disciples, is one of total and constant change. As believers and disciples of Christ we should expect to change. In fact, we should want it with every fiber of our being. We are told that God’s goal for us is not better behavior or really good church attendance or even in-depth Bible knowledge. As important as those things are, the goal is for us to love God with all our being (Mark 12:30) and to become like Christ! (Romans 8:28-29) The Holy Spirit is working tirelessly to enable us to become Christ-like. (Actually the goal is total transformation. But since that may freak you out, I’m not gonna use that word this time around. So whatever you do, don’t read Romans 12:2!)
The truth of the matter is that we are not people who need to be a little better at who we are and do a little better at what we’re already doing. We are people who are profoundly diseased and deceived by sin, and we need to be rescued from our current condition. (Romans 3:23) The problem is that we, cultural Christians, are at our core not interested in what God wants for us. We don’t want to change like that. We just want help doing a little better or we want God to make our life better than it is right now.
That can’t be bad, can it? Wanting things to go better is not a sin. It’s not like we’re opposed to God. That would obviously be bad. Our resistance to the kind of change God wants for us merely feels like we are willing to – I don’t know – do with less. The truth is, when we are not open to the Holy Spirit changing us from the core, our heart’s desire is in direct opposition to the desire of God’s heart. The word for that is rebellion. That is a bad word in the Bible. You do not want to be rebellious with God. You don’t even want to be around a rebellious person.
For the Christian who is unwilling to change, the Bible has got to be one huge annoyance. It offers them nothing of the kind of stuff they want. The story of the Bible is God’s plan to rescue and redeem his children and transform them so that they can once again be in a loving, safe, peaceful, and eternal relationship with Him. It’s what we were made for, and for the most part we aren’t willing to go through all the hassle and give up the stuff we’ve become fond of to get there. I feel the tug every day, and it is insanity. Why would I be interested in staying with my pet sins and live in fear, discontent, anger and varying amounts of chaos? Would I not rather surrender myself to the God who created me and has gone to unimaginable lengths to heal me and change me into a creature that can actually be in his arms?
Okay, the line of demarcation. The promises of the Bible, the healing, the delivery from sin, the freedom and the relationship it promises with God, those things are not for everyone. Those promises are only for those who have surrendered to God and are willing to do whatever He asks in order for the Holy Spirit to empower them for the kind of change that will move them toward Christ-likeness. The person who is up for that is called a Disciple of Christ. This person is who our soul has always really wanted to be but our sin and the fear and confusion it brings with it has made us afraid to move toward God in this total surrender sort of way. You don’t have to fear becoming a housefly or some kind of alien monster. This is God we are talkin’ about here. You can trust Him to do for you what you can’t even imagine.
I need to be changed. You need to be changed. Our families need us to be changed, and the sooner the better. Embrace God and know that in five years you’ll be loving the things God loves more and hating the things God hates more. And once you discover the joy and the freedom and the power of that kind of life, you will never want to go back. The only way to get there is total surrender and to become a Disciple of Christ with the help and protection of the Holy Spirit. I want Jesus more than anything, and I want to become more like Him. So yes, I’ll have some change please.
