Ed, my neighbour next door, has dismissed the idea of going to Mexico, Arizona or any of the other winter holiday destinations. My neighbour, after extensive snooping into travel prices, has concluded this is a year everyone should stay home. According to Ed, it is too expensive for anyone to travel to warmer climates. I mentioned I had talked to several folks going to the islands of the Caribbean and Mexico this year, so maybe Ed missed some good prices for travel. My neighbour assured me when it comes to finding the cost of stuff, no one can beat him. Ed told me if something is too expensive in his opinion, then it is too expensive for everyone.
Ed may be certain winter holiday travel is too expensive this year, but many people are still travelling for vacations, in spite of, what my neighbour thinks. Ed said holiday travellers should be sorry for over spending this season. I doubt if the vacation travellers will see it that way, but once Ed gets his mind made up about something then dynamite will not change it. Once we have formed an opinion and made up our minds, we tend to be like Ed in that, it takes powerful persuasion for us to change our minds. Changing in any way is easier said than done.
Julie Kliger, an emergency room nurse in an inner city hospital for many years, wrote that lives change from events beyond people’s control. Regularly the emergency department of a hospital deals with people who have been turned around from their normal life. Having a heart attack or a stroke, sustaining an accidental cut or wound, breaking a bone, receiving a dog bite and going into early labour all change folks in minutes and hours. Many who come to the hospital will be shaken, but able to handle the change that has turned their lives upside down. After years of helping, treating and watching emergency room patients, she speaks of how we often refuse to change this way. “I learned that we are creatures of habit and will do the same thing tomorrow even if what we are doing today lands us in the ER.”
As Christians, we may ignore the truth that Jesus came to call sinners to repentance. Repentance is a call to change or turn around and go towards God rather than away from him. It also means to believe we are sinners in need of God’s love, forgiveness and a way of life that honours God not ourselves. Jonah, a prophet in the Old Testament was called to go to Nineveh, and warn the people God was going to overthrow their city. Instead of going to Nineveh as God instructed, Jonah went in the opposite direction. Jonah had his reasons for disobeying God. He found he could not get away from what God called him to do. Repentance is our realization we have been going in the opposite direction to where God is directing us to be. God’s word has the power of dynamite to change us and to get us going in God’s direction.
