Loss to gain. Defeat to victory. Weeping to joy. Failure to success. Falling to rising. Death to life.
This is the divine pattern of maturity, growth, and progress. Try though we may, we cannot avoid it or reverse it. We may attempt to of course, but there will be no real forward momentum, only a mired existence in the status quo. Not at all the eternal life in God’s kingdom that Jesus promised.
Deep change and growth are inherently uncomfortable. There is always some sort of grief involved. Some kind of suffering or pain or absence that ends up becoming the very fuel for the fire we need to keep us warm and safe in the dark until daylight breaks.
The familiar and the habitual are so falsely reassuring, and most of us make our homes there permanently. The new is always by definition unfamiliar and untested, so God, life, destiny, suffering have to give us a push—usually a big one—or we will not go.
Richard Rohr, Falling Upward
Like the disciples saying goodbye to Jesus so that they might greet the Holy Spirit, we must learn to let go of what is familiar and safe for greater promises.
