Wednesday, October 15, 2008

The Flying Carraige...


Last week, I was in Penn Yan for a meeting of the Committee on Evangelism in our Presbytery.

An interesting thing happened on my way to the meeting. As I was coming down the hill into the village, I passed an Amish carriage also coming into town. I didn't think much of it at the time, as there are a lot of Amish in the area, and a carriage is not an uncommon thing in Penn Yan. Several of the stores even have special parking areas for the Amish carriages.

What got my attention was that well over a mile later, I was stopped at a stop light, and the carriage came up and passed me, making a right at the intersection I was stopped at.

What struck me in that is that the carriage really isn't a bad mode of transportation. He was moving right along. For getting into town, or getting around town, it worked quite well. As well as my car!

Change is all around us. It's inevitable. New things come and become common place, only to be replaced by something newer later. Often, these new things mean we can get more done, or at least do things considerably easier. Sometimes it just means we do things different.

The trick, perhaps, is learning what new things are really going to be better, and embrace them, while holding off on the new things that are just different.

That's a pretty tall order, because I think that it's really beyond our abilities to discern that question. The best we can do is stay close to God, no matter what changes come our way, and to trust in Him to bring us to the change that is best for us. Which, I suppose, might be just what the Amish have done...

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