Life is not just about saying "Hi!" to someone or something new in our lives. Life is also about saying "Goodbye!" and moving on. Part of the dilemma we face is that we don't want to say goodbye when we say hi to something new. While both can be good experiences, they often are not. Hi and goodbye can be forced upon us without any forewarning. The pink slip at work, the sudden announcement that he/she is/are leaving. You get the picture. Jesus experienced this in many different ways during his ministry here on earth.
On another level there are those who don't say goodbye and don't say hi. They are stuck in whatever area of their life where the change was denied. It could be your spiritual life or otherwise. The older we get the more we are aware that the world has passed us by in this or that area when we haven't wanted to change or were too fearful to change. It might be the empty nest or the retirement from work. The change could be either internal or external.
The Beatles sing of "you say goodbye, I say hello" and so it is in some of our relationships. When we don't want the change or are embracing the change and others don't want us to go through the change. Family reunions are a good example. Years after leaving home, "they" still have their games and you are expected to play with them. Should you decide to quit the game, the pressure increases until there is a fracture point and both parties are changed forever.
I remember as a teenager standing in what used to be a field of wheat and now is worthless because of a hail storm. Looking at a calf that is dead because of whatever reason. Sometimes change makes sense and sometimes it doesn't. Why did this happen when I had prayed for that? Can't we please slow down the merry-go-round and get off!? It's not really that easy is it? There is something in the human spirit that encourages us to go on. That same encouragement gives us hope after a tragic goodbye.
Isn't that what Jesus asks of us? He doesn't ask us to say goodbye or hello without there being some reason. Reason is what we find missing in so many of the changes in our lives. When the death is of a child or a parent, there sometimes is no "reason" that is acceptable to us. Jesus has a reason. He did it with the child who had died as well as his good friend who was already buried. He rose them from the dead. Okay, I'll give you that we don't have that power. He does though.
It's an insane argument to look at the life of mankind from God's perspective. We don't like to read in the Bible that we are born dead and are made alive only when Jesus has entered our lives as Lord and Savior. But that is exactly the way it is. We are transformed when there is a goodbye to the world and the unsaved life. We are likewise transformed when there is the hello of the now alive saved life.
We can refuse Jesus' offer of salvation. We can accept Jesus' offer of salvation. The choice is all ours. Know this, that choice by us is and will be the best or worst decision we can make. You are in charge. You weigh the truth and it is you who chooses one of the other. There is no trickery or hidden agenda with Jesus and the choice. He simply died for our sins and is making his forgiveness free to any one who asks. Likewise the world will go on regardless of the choice you make. Because of that decision some will leave you and others embrace you. Make no bones about it; change will take place.
If you are having difficulty loving, it's because you have not let a past love go. You have not truly said goodbye or hello. Choice always leaves us with a goodbye and a hi. The decision to say hi to Jesus is a great one. However, it also requires of us to say goodbye to the old man. We cannot serve two masters. For if we do we will despise the one and love the other. When goodbye has been truly said, the door is closed. When we say hi and have truly meant it, the door is closed as well. Jesus waits....
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