Prepare to Meet Your God

Life at Bible School my senior year is now underway--how strange! As classes are starting up, old friendships being renewed and new ones just beginning, and a world of new opportunities at my doorstep, I've pressed with a question already:

"Are you ready to be changed?"

The president of the AFLC--Pastor Elden Nelson--spoke at chapel today on Amos 4, and I have never before agreed more with the saying "great minds think alike". :) As we look toward being alert and ready this month, I thought of twisting that a bit towards being ready for what God has in store for us here. Amos 4:12b says, "Prepare to meet your God, O Israel!"

Have you considered that before? Are you ready to be challenged in your faith, stretched, to know Him more? The first question I want to ask: Do you want to be changed?

Matthew 5:6 says, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied". It is in that hunger, that desire that God is going to have so much more room to work in your life. How often have you, like myself, had to learn a lesson multiple times until God finally smacked you upside the head with a figurative 2-by-4 before it finally sunk in, all because you weren't willing to be changed in the first place? God is going to bless that desire in you.

My second question is this: Are you willing to be transformed?

As I think of what it means to be transformed, I'm immediately drawn to the image of a butterfly. Transform comes from the word "metamorphose", which we get our word "metamorphosis"--the process a caterpillar goes through in order to become a butterfly. That change is not something that happens over night, and it certainly isn't an easy process (imagine being cooped up for so long... talk about claustrophobic!) but the end result is something beautiful.

As you start this new year, wherever you may be, are you ready to meet your God? Are you ready to be changed by Him? Are you ready to become more like Him?

Are you ready to become something beautiful, no matter how difficult and long the process?