Shane Ash

Over the last few days I have watched my almost 3-year-old little girl mature into a personality of her own. Not that she wasn’t developing over the last several months…but there is something unique about a change in environment to help speed up the growth process. She no longer has the comfort of the routines and habits in her own home environment.

Sometimes an environmental change is the best scenario for new growth. We humans tend to love the unchanging security of consistency…but more often than not, the growth spurts in our life are due to changes in our circumstance or environments. It is magnified in our faith. Our faith history is scarred with moments of change, major circumstances and environmental changes that shake our foundation and help strengthen our core.

Think about it; some of the most impacting spiritual moments in youth are at camps or special events, and I can personally point to the death of a friend several years ago and a defining conference in 2007 that shaped my calling more than anything else.

It happens again and again, people suddenly experience a difficult circumstance and come out on the other side with an unshakable faith. And as they tell their story later, they say, “I didn’t want it…but I am so grateful for the experience now because God did something in the middle of those circumstances that shaped me forever.”

C.S. Lewis writes, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”