Change and Decay

One of my favorite church songs used to be "Abide with Me." Now, I usually go for more upbeat tunes, but this one has an interesting tenor deal going on at the end that I always liked. And the idea of a God who is "Help of the helpless" who would always "abide with me" is an important message. But there is a phrase in the song that bothered me. "Change and decay in all around I see..." I know the message of the song is that God is changeless, but to imply that "change" and "decay" are somehow the same concept is not helpful. A lot of changes that we see around us are both good and positive.

As I write this, my daughters are on the road driving home for Thanksgiving. One is in college in Searcy and the other has graduated and is working there. Both of them are quite different from the little girls I used to carry around on my shoulders and play "roof ball" with in the back yard. They have both really changed and grown as people. And as nostalgic as I sometimes get for the good old days when they (and I) were younger, their changes have been growth-- not decay. They don't even have the option whether or not to grow and change. The only alternative to growth is death.

Also as I write this, our church pews are on their way to southern Mississippi. They will have a new home in a church building that was damaged by Hurricane Katrina. We will sit on borrowed chairs as we wait for our new chairs to arrive next month. Change. The auditorium does look very different; in fact, it even looks a little sad. I know I am a little sad. My girls grew up sleeping on those pews and climbing over those pews. They both got up from one of those pews to walk down front to name Christ as Savior and be baptized. There is a lot of history in those (extremely heavy) pieces of particle board furniture. It will be a change sitting on form-fitting, lumbar-supporting chairs. But it won't be decay. Growth. Churches like people grow, and growth is change, not decay.