sweet innocence

Upon finishing a book in the Anne of Green Gables series I find myself wishing for that world of sweet innocence. I hear people talk a lot about wanting to live in those older days where things were simpler. Personally, I enjoy the technologies of today, but I wish for that innocence and the decorum people used to display. That idea that certain things are sacred, that some things should be left unsaid in keeping with good taste.

We live in a world that is growing increasingly unashamed of things that we should not be unashamed of. I get on facebook and have to hide so many of the posts because of the lack of propriety shown. I see girls posting pictures of themselves in bikinis and wonder were is their self-respect? I see all the bad language that is used. Maybe it doesn't seem like a big deal, but even the little things can cause cracks in our self-control.

But I love reading books like I did tonight, where God is still held in reverence, the marriage bed is kept pure, and decency is what is expected not something rare. It holds a life that is simpler, not necessarily because of technology or lack of it, but because of the character of people. 

"For a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness. For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor. No good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly."

Psalms 84:8-9 (ESV)

change

I have never been a huge fan of change, but I love the idea of potential. Ironic because I don't know how you reach potential without doing things at least a little different than you have been. And maybe that is why potential is rarely reached, because it demands change. Potential is a beautiful thing though. It allows you to look past your fears and focus on something bigger, something with meaning, with purpose.

Maybe the hard part with change is that there are parts of life at present that we love, and we become unwilling to let that part go even if something better could be waiting. From a purely business stand point, I can see why staying the same would be a bad thing. If I kept the money I made, and never invested in the future I would have that money only as long as I didn't spend it on something different that wouldn't allow me to grow, and then I would be done. The benefits of change are apparent in business, but often allusive in life because we often sit there looking at the risk and forgetting that there could be a payoff.

The point of all of this is not to take bigger risks and expect great payoffs because there is also that other side  that the bigger the risk the higher the rate of failure. The point is that change is one of those things that comes with risks, and you don't have to just throw everything that is working out the window in order to get that greener grass. And maybe the change is not to get the greener grass on the other side. Maybe it is to make the grass we already have greener, to reach or at least come closer to reaching that potential that we each have inside of us, to do those great things God put each of us here to do. Maybe the change is the catalyst to becoming who we are meant to be.


"The plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord." Proverbs 16:3 (ESV)