How Do We Adapt To Sudden Changes?
My family just got back from a snow skiing trip in Colorado. We all love to ski! My son says it is his favorite sport, I laugh and tell him that we live in the wrong area for it to be his favorite sport. Not only does Arkansas not get much snow, but it also does not have many mountains that would make good ski slopes. So, our family cherishes the one week a year we get to go to Colorado and enjoy the peaceful snow, majestic mountains, and laid-back culture of a mountain town.
With all the enjoyment of this vacation, also comes challenges we face. Because we live at sea level all the other weeks of the year, we must conscisouly prepare our bodies for the altitude. We have found a competition we play on who can drink the most the week before our trip. Hydration is key! Then, we must prepare our bodies to participate in a sport that we do not do daily. Months before we go, we do a lot of wall sits, lunges, and squats to strengthen our legs for the strain they will take during our week of skiing. I make sure everyone is packed with all the necessities we will need to stay warm in the colder climate. Everyone has base layers, waterproof insulated outerwear, thick ski socks, helmets, goggles, hand and toe warmers, and neck gators. This vacation that we all love and look forward to takes a lot of planning and thought-out preparation, and every year I think we are ready for whatever may come our way.
Our first two days of skiing were good but not great. There had not been much fresh snow so the snow that was there was hard packed and not very forgiving. I began skiing as an adult, so I am not an advanced skier. I spent a morning with my kid’s ski instructor who they ski with every year. Our family has grown to love her, and my kids would be devastated if they did not get to ski with her. She gave me tips on how to dig into the hard packed snow and get on my edges. She told me to carve the snow with the sides of my skis by tilting my ankles and being more aggressive with the snow. This would prevent my skis from slipping on the hard packed snow that could feel like ice in some areas. So, I worked on that for two days and was finally getting better at carving the snow with my skis.
Then, on the third day, we got 11 inches of fresh powder. This soft snow changed everything I had been working on. I no longer needed to be aggressive with my ankles tilting, I needed to be softer on my skis and allow them to gradually turn through the soft powder. Instead of aggressively getting on my edges, I needed to keep my skis a little flatter and allow them to glide through the snow. If I was too aggressive, the “snow monster” would come up and grab the back of my ski and send me tumbling to the ground. The older I get, the more I try to avoid even a little fall.
Our instructor said I needed to adapt to the changing of the mountain. She said the mountain is always changing with the weather and terrain. One day it is icy, the next day there is 11 inches of powdery snow. One side of the ski run has large bumps you must navigate around, the other side is smoothed and groomed. You may come upon a rock that you must avoid in the middle of a run and if you are skiing with my kids, there are always trees you need to steer clear of.
After we had a long conversation about adapting to the mountain, I could not stop thinking about how we must adapt in life. Life has many sudden changes, and these changes require an adjustment in us. Adapting and adjusting is not an easy thing to do for a perfectionist. I tend to get set in my way and I make deep tracks that I follow. When life throws a rock in my track, it’s real hard for me to deviate from my track to go around that rock because I cannot adapt to my new terrain.
Therein lies the problem. When we adapt to our life and our way of thinking, we get caught off guard and disappointed that everything is not going as planned. We can’t change our path and our thoughts quickly to adapt to the sudden change in our life when we are only focused on being the victim.
Adapting our lives according to God’s will is the only way we can smoothly shift from one circumstance to another. For instance, maybe you suddenly lost your job, lost a loved one, got a bad health diagnosis, got in an argument with your spouse or teenage child, or must move your family to a new state. These are sudden changes that take us off our regular tracks. A circumstance has been placed in your path that you cannot avoid and the only thing you can do is either go over it or move around it. It is not something you can just pretend it is not there and go through it without any scars.
What helps us to either go over it or around it is relying on God’s will and plan for our life.
When we adapt to God’s will, we can look at our circumstances differently. We no longer see ourselves as the victim, but we see ourselves as an opportunist. We can allow ourselves to ask these questions. What is God’s plan in this situation? What is God wanting me to learn through this circumstance? How is God maturing me? How is God growing me closer to Him? These questions can be very difficult, but they can also be very liberating. They can break the chain that holds us from letting go of our perfection and allow us to walk in step with Jesus and who He is molding us to be.
God may not bring these bad circumstances upon us, but we can be sure that no matter what is thrown in our path, He can use it for our good and for His Kingdom. We must allow ourselves to adapt to His will just like we adapt to the weather or terrain. “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” Jesus says this in Matthew 19 as He talks to His disciples. We cannot do any of this on our own. When we face the reality that we will crumble if we adapt to this world and we will stand firm if we adapt to God’s will, then it will be possible for us to rely on God to get us through all our circumstances.
Digging Deeper:
How is God calling you to adapt to His will?
What stands in your way from adapting to God’s will?