Kerry Shook - Navigating Change
We're in a series we're calling, "Set Your Sails," and we're learning how to live with divine momentum and clear direction, because if there was ever a time when we need clear direction, it's in these confusing times. Several years ago Chris came up to me with a huge smile on her face and she said, "You know how I've always wanted for our family to raft down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon? It's always been a dream of mine". And I said, "Yeah". And she said, "Well, I just booked us on an eight day rafting trip to the Grand Canyon for the summer". And she went on to excitedly tell me that it was pretty much a miracle because all the good rafting companies are booked up two years out.
But one of the companies just added an extra trip, and she happened to be online, and she booked it right away for our whole family. And she said, "It's really a miracle". And I said, "Are you sure it's a miracle? Or could it be just Satan's deception". I said, "I'm not sure we're really a camping kind of family. I mean, the river is 55 degrees. The canyon at night is over 100 degrees with dry, hot winds blowing all through the night". And I said, "Chris, do you really think we can make it for eight days? I mean, do they have one of those, like, one day rafting excursions that we could just kind of get our feet wet and just test it out to see if we like it"? But no, we did it.
And if you've never rafted through the Grand Canyon on the Colorado River and it's on your bucket list and you're wondering what it would be like, I'll describe it to you. It's the equivalent of standing in a cold shower fully clothed with a life jacket on for eight days. But with you in that small shower is your whole family with two other families you've never met before. And then you get out of the shower at night and put your face in front of a blow dryer until morning. And then you share the same toilet that moves with you on the raft every day. Hey, if you ever find out you have eight days to live, I highly recommend it, because it'll feel like the longest eight days of your life. I mean, but I have to also say that's the vacation our family talks about the most. We made so many painful memories. It was amazing. No, there were a lot more great memories, unique, once in a lifetime experiences.
You see, I didn't mention there were so many moments during those eight days that were so amazing. They were life changing. I mean, seeing the sunset over the canyon, painting these beautiful colors in the sky, glowing off the canyon wall. It was stunning. Swimming with my family in crystal blue pools after a hike with breathtaking views, seeing the power of our Creator in the mighty Colorado River as we went over massive rapids and we survived and just watching the smiles and the fear on my kids's faces. And I thought, "This is what life is". It's a journey down a winding river that is filled with both beautiful and painful moments.
Sometimes we sail on calm and peaceful waters with a beautiful sunset. Sometimes we're sailing into joy-filled moments just racing through the water with the wind at our back, the water splashing in our face on a beautiful sunny day. But we also sail into fearful storms and rough seas that batter our ship. And sometimes in life we're hit by a tidal wave of loss and pain. Life is like a voyage where we're sailing and we're thinking, if my boat is going in the right direction, there should be smooth sailing. There'll never be rough seas. There'll never be problems. If I'm going in God's direction, if I'm in the middle of God's will, then I'll always be sailing on smooth waters with the wind at my back. But that's not real life, because the winds are always changing and our ship will run into storms.
The winds of change are constantly blowing, and sometimes they hit with hurricane force. But God has good news for you today. Yes, we will all go through storms, and maybe you're going through a storm right now, but God wants to speak to you in the storm. Let's look at Psalm 46, one of my favorite chapters in God's Word. And would you stand in honor of God's Word? "God is our refuge and strength and ever-present help in trouble. Therefore, we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging".
God says this, and he says this to you today and to me. I need it. "Be still and know that I am God, I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted in the earth. The Lord Almighty is with us. The God of Jacob is our fortress". You can be seated. If you're a believer, God says even if the earthquakes of life shake all the mountains around you and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea and the storm waves churn and the hurricane force winds of change hit your life, God says, "I'll be your refuge. I'll hold you together when everything else in your life is falling apart". When everything around you is shaken, you'll be on solid ground. The one who calmed the storm will calm the storm in your heart and give you peace. In fact, God says, "I'll use the storm winds to take you to a new place of peace and provision and blessing".
See, that's the great news, because the storm winds of change will blow into all of our lives. That's just a fact. Seasons change, times change, people change, circumstances change, everything seems to change. You see, we tend to look at the winds of change as either good change or bad change. It's either change that brings us upward or change that takes us down, change that blows us forward in life or change that blows us backward with the wind in our face. And it's understandable, because when the storm winds of change hit your life, it's about all you can see at the time. It's either a good wind, you get a promotion, it's a bad wind, you lose your job.
And that's the way we think of it. And it's understandable, because in the storm that's kind of all you can see. But I can tell you this, the Bible promises us whenever God allows a storm to come into your life, whenever the hurricane force winds of life hit your ship and batter your boat, ultimately God's purpose is to take you forward, to take you to a new level, to a new land, to give you a breakthrough, to bring you closer to him, to experience more of his presence and blessing and strength in your life. Even the worst storms, even those bad winds and storms that God didn't cause but God allowed into your life, God can bring good out of even those. And those can take you to a new level of growth, a new level of joy in the middle of the pain, a new level of peace in the middle of the swirling winds of anxiety that are in your mind and heart.
Sometimes you have to experience a change down before you can experience that change up. Sometimes you have to experience failure before you can experience success. Sometimes the winds of change have to blow you backwards before you could set your sails to catch the winds of change that take you to a new land. You see, what if you're hiking, and you're going on a trail, and then you come up to a creek, and you don't want to get your feet wet and cross the creek, so you wanna jump over the creek. You've got this barrier in front of you and the trail on the other side, and you realize while you're standing right next to the creek you can't jump over it.
You've got no momentum, so what do you gotta do? You gotta back up, and as you back up and go backwards, you then have room to have the momentum to run and then to jump over that barrier and land on the other side, a new land, a new level. And sometimes God allows a setback in our lives, and we see it as a terrible setback, but it's really a set up. God is setting us up to go to a new level, because we're at a barrier where we're stuck. And when you're stuck at a barrier, you're at a wall, a dead end, all you can see is the wall when you're right next to it, and it's a wall maybe that you just can't get over. It seems like it's been there for so long. It's a problem in your life that keeps coming back over and over again.
You can't get to the next level. Maybe it's a financial situation, a problem that you find yourself in over and over and you can't break through it. Maybe it's an addiction that you can't break through, and you're so close to it, and you think, "I just gotta get over this one thing". But you know what God allows many times? He allows a setback, and you're so set back, and you think, "I can't do it. It's a setback". But really, it's a set up, because God's setting you up to realize you can't do it, that you have to turn your life over to his care and control. You can't control the wind. You've been stuck there for so long, and God allows the setback because he's setting you up to take you to the next level.
So, you set yourselves to catch his momentum so you can go to a new land so you can go through that barrier, you can go over that barrier and never be stuck there again. See, sometimes setback is really a set up. I want us to look at Isaiah 43:18. I love this passage. God says this to you today. "Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I'm doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I'm making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland". God is speaking to the people of Israel through the prophet Isaiah, and God is telling them the winds of change are blowing.
But, see, it all comes back to learning how to set your sails to catch the winds of change. And the Bible says there are three things that you have to do to set your sails to catch the divine wind and go in God's direction. The first thing is an attitude that accepts change, an attitude that accepts change. When the hurricane force winds of change hit our lives, usually the first thing we do is fight it. I know that's the first thing I usually do. I fight it. I don't like it. I try to control the wind. We try to control our circumstances, we try to control people, or we try to turn back time. It's like, "I wanna go back before this hit, before the storm hit, God. I mean, this isn't the way it's supposed to be".
And when we try to go back, we really just wrap the anchor of regret and the anchor of shame over our lives, and it takes us under. Or we wanna sail straight into the wind. "I can get through this in my own strength". We sail straight into the wind, trying to fight the winds of change, but you don't get anywhere when you set yourselves directly into the wind. You just wear yourself out. You lose your joy. The storm winds of change will blow into your life. You can deny it, you can resent it, you can fight it, or you can learn to accept it. And if you don't learn to accept the changes in your life that you can't change, the winds of change will batter you and eventually sink you. God wants you to learn to set yourselves to catch the winds of change.
I want us to do a little study of Isaiah 43, so let's look at Isaiah 43:18. God says, "Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past". You see, God is telling us, "Don't get stuck in the way it used to be, because you'll miss out on what I'm doing in your life now". You can't control the changing circumstances, but you can still choose to have an attitude of joy. In fact, the only way you ever learn joy and experience joy is in the middle of a storm. And because happiness is all dependent upon your happenings, your circumstances. If your circumstances are perfect, then you're happy. But most of life has circumstances that aren't perfect, and so we lose our happiness, but that's where you find joy in the middle of the storm. But when the storm is swirling around you, you find a joy from inside, through the Holy Spirit of God.
That's unexplainable. That's where we find the greatest treasures of life, in the middle of the storm, because there's nothing about the circumstances. I want us to look at this next, 2 Corinthians 3:7. It says, "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom". So, when the Holy Spirit is in control of your life, there's a flexibility to change. You have to set your sails to catch the wind of the Spirit. He doesn't change the way he's going to the way you're going. You have to change the way you're going to the way he's going to find peace and joy and fulfillment. So, first we have to learn to adapt to change. And then secondly, we need a faith that sees the divine opportunity even in the painful changes.
In Isaiah 43:19 God says, "See, I'm doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it"? God says, "I'm doing a new thing. New winds are blowing, do you not see it"? But when we're in the middle of the storm, we can't see so many times. We can't see what God is up to. We just see the storm clouds, and God says, "But pray, 'Open my eyes, Lord, so I can see and perceive what you're doing, so I can set myself to catch the winds of change so I don't miss the miracle in the middle of this mess.'"
And so, that's what we wanna pray during our 21 days of prayer. Monday through Friday every morning we have a five minute devotion on all our platforms. I teach it, some of our pastors teach it, and we want you to connect tomorrow morning, and it's passages on prayer. We're learning how to pray, we're writing down one or two or three of the prayer requests that we wanna pray that are most important to us right now in our lives, and we're praying just a few minutes a day, and we're seeing God answer prayers. But the biggest prayer that I want us to pray during this time is God opened my eyes to see the opportunity in this storm. God opened my eyes so I can see how to set my sails to catch the winds of change, even these painful changes that are blowing into my life.
You see, we need an attitude of opportunity. There's an opportunity for growth in every storm. In James 1:2 it says, "Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow; for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing". You see, painful changes are an opportunity for joy, they're an opportunity to grow, they're an opportunity to grow up and get mature. You see, when my preschool grandkids don't get exactly what they want, sometimes they throw a tantrum. It's like, "No, you know, you know, you can't eat M & Ms right now until you eat your Snickers bar".
You know, it's like, no, you know, we're so tough on him as grandparents, you know. But it really, you know, they don't get what they want, "Oh, it's terrible". You know, they do that thing where they just turn into jelly, you know, and you can't pick them up. Just, you know, flop on the floor. It's the worst thing. Oh, you'd think the worst thing that could ever happen to someone just happened to them. That's immaturity, they're supposed to be immature at that age. But they have to grow in maturity. Reality doesn't adapt to you, you have to adapt to reality. It's an opportunity for growth, to mature. It's also an opportunity for breakthrough.
In Romans 8:28 it says, "And we know God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them". You know, that passage says he's making a way in the wilderness. You see, God may have allowed that setback to set you up for a breakthrough, and so pray, "God, open my eyes to see the opportunity in this problem," because so many of our best opportunities are brilliantly disguised as a huge problem. "God, give me the ability to see through this pain and this problem, to see through this storm, to see the opportunity in the storm". It's also an opportunity to experience God's love.
Says in Romans 8:38, "And I'm convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God's love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today, nor our worries about tomorrow, not even the powers of hell can separate us from God's love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below, indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord". Did you get that? There's no storm that can separate you from the love of God. He will walk with you through every storm. As long as you're in his boat, you're not gonna go under. He's gonna see you through the storm.
So, we need an attitude that accepts change, a faith that sees the opportunity in change, and then we need a God who never changes in a world of changes and uncertainty. You better have a foundation that never changes. And God says this in Malachi 3:6. "I am the Lord, and I do not change". With everything around us changing in these confusing, chaotic times, it's so good to know that God is always faithful. God is always faithful. Even when I'm faithless, he remains faithful, because that's who he is. That's his character.
Alan Shepard, the first American astronaut to orbit the earth, right before he got in the capsule, a reporter asked him, "What are you counting on as you go into space for the first time"? And he said, "I'm counting on God's laws to never change. I'm counting on God's laws, because they never change". I mean, wouldn't it be crazy if there was gravity one day and no gravity the next? You never know. "Oh, it's Monday, I don't think there's gravity today. We better tie ourselves down". I mean, how crazy would that be? I'm counting on the fact God's laws never change. I'm glad we have a God who never changes. He's the same yesterday today and forever, and you can always count on him. Maybe your job situation's changed, maybe your financial situation's changed, maybe your marriage has taken a downward turn.
So good to know we have a God who never changes. He's always faithful. Jesus Christ said this in the last book of the Bible, in Revelation 21:5, he says this to you. "Behold, I am making all things new". That's what Jesus does. One day all that is wrong will be made right. All the pain in your life will go away when we go into heaven. One day all those things that are upside down are gonna be right side up. All those things that are old and broken are gonna be brand new, restored, healed, and whole. That's what Jesus does.
And even in this life he wants to take all your old mistakes, all of your old wounds, and your old hurts, and he wants to make something new out of them. He wants to set you in a new direction, he wants to give you a new way, take you to a new level, take you to new lands with new opportunities. That's Jesus, and it really all comes down to him. Jesus Christ, God's Son, the author of salvation. You see, there's a scarlet thread that runs throughout the whole Bible. Not only is Jesus in the last book of the Bible, but Jesus is in the first book of the Bible. Did you know Jesus Christ is mentioned in every book of the Bible. If you just pray, "God, open my eyes," you'll see it right away.
In Genesis he's the light of the world, the Creator of all things.
In Exodus he's the Passover Lamb that delivers his children.
In Leviticus he's the High Priest who bridges the gap between God and man.
In numbers he is the cloud and the fire that lead the people through the desert.
In Deuteronomy he's the prevailing prophet.
In Joshua he's the captain of our salvation.
In judges he's the great Judge of both the living and the dead.
In Ruth he's the kinsman redeemer who redeems the lost and the lonely.
In 1 and 2 Samuel he's the voice of truth, crying out in the middle of the night.
In 1 and 2 Kings he is the one true King.
In 1 and 2 Chronicles he's the holy one.
In Ezra he's the faithful one.
In Nehemiah he's the rebuilder of broken walls.
In Esther he's the rescuer in our time of need.
In Job he's the restorer of all things, the maker of all things new.
In Psalms he's the Good Shepherd.
In Proverbs and Ecclesiastes he's the wisdom of God.
In the song of Solomon he is the unconditional banner of love that hovers over us at all times.
In Isaiah he's the suffering servant.
In Jeremiah and Lamentations he's the God whose heart breaks for us.
In Ezekiel he's the resurrection and the life to dry bones.
In Daniel he's the Son of Man, coming in the clouds.
In Hosea he's the bridegroom who never stops loving.
In Joel he is salvation for all.
In Amos he is the burden bearer and the load lifter.
In Obadiah he is the Mighty Savior.
In Jonah he's the God of the second chance.
In Micah he's the messenger of good news.
In Nahum he's the restorer of justice.
In Habakkuk he's the interceder for the broken.
In Zephaniah he is strength for the weak and the helpless.
In Haggai he is the cleansing fountain.
In Zechariah he is the fierce Son of God.
In Malachi he's the Son of righteousness.
In Matthew he is the Messiah and the friend of sinners.
In Mark he's the miracle worker.
In Luke he's the Son of Man.
In John he's the Son of God.
In Acts he's the power of God.
In Romans he's the gift of salvation.
In 1 and 2 Corinthians he's the last Adam who reverses all wrongs.
In Galatians he's all freedom.
In Ephesians he is the cornerstone that the builders rejected, but he's the only foundation you can build a life on.
In Philippians he's the name above all names who meets our every need.
In Colossians he's the fullness of God, the hope of glory.
In 1 and 2 Thessalonians he's the peace of God.
In 1 and 2 Timothy he is the great mediator between God and man.
In Titus he is our blessed hope.
In Philemon he's the friend that sticks closer than a brother.
In Hebrews he's the blood that washes away all my sin.
In James he's the great physician.
In 1 and 2 Peter he's the Great Shepherd.
In 1, 2, and 3 John he is everlasting love.
In Jude he's the God who saves.
And in Revelation he's the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the bright and morning star, the Lion of Judah, the Prince of Peace, the returning King of kings, the Lord of lords. His name is Jesus. He loves you.