Change | Wendy Clark Ministries

I’m not the person I once was and not the person that I will one day be. And that’s very good news.

Today, I have lived 59 years.That’s amazing to me and somewhat unbelievable. Wasn’t I in my twenties just moments ago? In truth I’ve been planting many seeds in my life in the past 30 years (and more). As I look back at the growth in my life in the past 30 years, what does the crop look like that I am harvesting now?

I’ve learned to love better, much better. I’m more patient in difficult circumstances and with difficult people. I’ve learned how to wait well, to wait on GOD as a loving Father and to be more compassionate with hurting people. I treat people more gently and with more kindness.

I feel peaceful most of the time, no matter what manner of chaos is going on around me. I live with deep joy.

All of these things have grown in me, not because I am someone outstanding or amazing, but because over time I have learned to surrender to the prodding of the Holy Spirit in my life, day after day after day. I have come to understand the benefit of surrendering quickly and fully to the Holy Spirit, to not try to battle it out with the GOD of the universe. I have experienced His goodness and His grace, His great kindness and tender mercy.

I have responded to the hunger and thirst for the Word that the Holy Spirit has stirred in me, and it has continued to grow more deep and vast, and my view of Scripture has grown richer and more intense. It’s been opened up to me in a way that Wendy in her twenties only dreamed of. Consequently, I have grown consistent in seeking GOD through His Word and have gradually expanded my morning time with Him, wanting so much more.

I sense GOD’s presence so very close to me all throughout the day now, every day. If I feel fearful or anxious, my first and immediate response is to go to GOD as my loving Father in prayer and worship. He is my refuge. He comforts me, leads me, and holds me. He faithfully draws out all fear and worry. In His presence is perfect peace.

I knew GOD well when I was 39. I’d had babies and cancer and healing. I knew Him even better at 49.I’d had failures and successes and walked in more confidence and less fear.

At 59 I realize that I’ve only begun to know Him. In the past decade I’ve relied even more on my heavenly Father for strength, comfort, direction, and provision. With my family I uprooted my life, resettled in another state, changed careers, started a ministry, and left behind a wonderful life for an equally wonderful, entirely different one. I’ve lost both of my parents and have celebrated the lives they lived serving Jesus. I’ve moved into a new season where my siblings and I are now in that “older” generation.

And throughout all of these changes, I’ve continued to grow in my knowledge and understanding of GOD. And He is wonderful. I suspect that throughout Eternity I will be learning, growing, and knowing more and that there will be no end to the expanding depth and richness of understanding about who GOD is and how deeply He loves me.

I’m not done growing and changing. New challenges have revealed new places in me in need of GOD’s tender transformation, and I am confident that He will continue to refine me as I continue to cooperate with all that He wants to do in my life.

And whatever this next year holds for me, I know that GOD will be faithful to His promises. He will never leave me (Hebrews 13:15), He will supply everything that I need (Philippians 4:19), and He will work out all things for my good (Romans 8:28).

The last birthday of my fifties. The last year before turning 60. Ready.Set.Go!

© Wendy Clark, 2021

I’ve been using Bob Goff’s book Live in Grace-Walk in Love:A 365-Day Journey as a supplement to my other Bible studies, Bible reading, and personal reflection. Though Bob Goff’s book follows a schedule of sorts, I don’t read in keeping with it. (I’m somewhere in October’s reading right now.) But as often happens when I read daily readings according to my own schedule, the reading for today relates well to what I have been thinking about.

Here are a few of the things that Bob Goff writes that stand out to me:

“ . . . when I started to think of them [dreaded airport experiences] as opportunities to give away love,my attitude changed.”

“When I think someone ought to be more loving, it’s usually me.”

“The longer I follow Jesus, the more I’m trying to see through the eyes of other people.”

“We come into contact with people every day who need to encounter love.”

“Don’t leave it to someone else to do the loving for you.”

I agree with all of these statements, and I understand them to be true, both in what I know and by what I have experienced. But I would not have been able to agree in the same way many years ago.

In a Bible study discussion the other day one question centered around our awareness of sin, what causes our awareness of sin, and how we respond when we become aware of our own sin.

I thought back to when I was 19 or 20, and in studying the book of I John, I became very convicted by my own lack of love for others, especially difficult people or people who thought very differently from me.

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
I John 4:7-8, ESV

I had sung this passage many times (maybe you can sing the song and know where the claps belong), but suddenly the words leaped off the page right into my heart, and the entire book of I John took on new significance for me. I felt an acute awareness of my inability to truly love other people, not an emotional, feeling, but the love that Paul describes in I Corinthians 13:

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
I Corinthians 13:4-7, ESV

I mourned over the incredible lack of true love in me, my intense selfishness, my general lack of concern about most other people, and my propensity to justify my own actions while criticizing the actions of others.

I came to the place where I recognized that in and of myself and my own will, I would never really love other people, especially difficult, challenging people. But that’s exactly what Jesus tells us to do.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?”
Matthew 5:43-47, ESV

I needed a Savior, a Deliverer, a Redeemer, and a Teacher, I needed transformation by a Power other than my own.

And so . . .

I confessed my sin of being selfish and unloving, and I took my sin where it belongs and laid it at the foot of the cross. I surrendered.

I am convinced that if we really want to be changed, the cross is the place where we must start, confessing our sin to God, laying it down, along with all of the plans and schemes and methods that we have tried in our own strength, by our own understanding, and recognizing our total inability to do anything about our sin or our weakness. Then turning in the direction of Jesus, let Him take us to the next place in our journey.

Today when I read Bob Goff’s words about love, I agreed with them, knowing them to be true, both intellectually by the Word of God, and also by my personal experience, having lived them. I am a much more loving person today than I was nearly 40 years ago when I felt hopeless in my ability to ever truly love. I see the world completely differently than I did back then. I see you differently.

How did I move from a place where loving people was never much on my radar to a place where loving people is front and center and where I actually look for opportunities to love other people?

I encountered the Word of God.
I believed it.
I submitted to it by putting it into practice.
I repeated these steps over and over and over again.

If you are struggling with sin, something in you that you know is counter to God’s Word, that you know needs to change, there is a simple practice that will take you to the next step: Encounter the Word of God. Believe it. Surrender to it.

Easy? Often it is not. It tends to take a lot of practice.

Simple? Yes, very simple. Even a young child can learn this practice, step by step, and it’s something that we should teach our children, even as we model it for them.

So then, do I now love perfectly? No. I am still being transformed. I am not who I once was, but I am not yet who I will be.

To me, that is very good news because in this last strange and challenging year, I have both made some new mistakes, and I’ve also repeated some very old ones. I have sometimes fallen into trying to persuade people who perhaps needed more to experience unconditional love. I have sometimes trod with heavy feet where I ought to have stopped lightly.

I am aware of these sinful missteps because I have daily encountered the Word of God. I believe that what God says is true and non-negotiable. I confess my sin daily (and trust me, I have daily sin to confess), and I seek to align myself with what God says is true and right and good. I surrender.

Every day that I practice, practice, practice following Jesus, I am transformed by the Power of the Holy Spirit, little by little.

If we will seek to be transformed, minute by minute, day by day, over a lifetime, we will, in time, be greatly changed. Instead, often we look for huge change in a short amount of time and with little perseverance, and so find ourselves to be ever the same.

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.
2 Corinthians 3:17-18, ESV

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
Romans 12:1-2, ESV