They Never Changed<\/b><\/p>\n
A close friend of mine was asked back to his forty-year high school reunion. For months he saved to take his wife back to the place and the people he\u2019d left four decades before. The closer the time came for the reunion, the more excited he became, thinking of all the wonderful stories he would hear about the changes and the accomplishments these old friends would tell him.<\/p>\n
One night before he left he even pulled out his old yearbooks, read the silly statements and the good wishes for the future that students write to each other. He wondered what ol\u2019 Number 86 from his football team had done. He wondered if any others had encountered this Christ who had changed him so profoundly. He even tried to guess what some of his friends would look like, and what kind of jobs and families some of these special friends had.<\/p>\n
The day came to leave and I drove them to the airport. Their energy was almost contagious. \u201cI\u2019ll pick you up on Sunday evening, and you can tell me all about it,\u201d I said. \u201cHave a great time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sunday evening arrived. As I watched them get off the plane, my friend seemed almost despondent. I almost didn\u2019t want to ask, but finally I said, \u201cWell, how was the reunion?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTim,\u201d the man said, \u201cit was one of the saddest experiences of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGood grief,\u201d I said, more than a little surprised.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat happened?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t what happened but what didn\u2019t happen. It has been forty years, forty years\u2014and they haven\u2019t changed. They had simply gained weight, changed clothes, gotten jobs\u2026but they hadn\u2019t really changed. And what I experienced was maybe one of the most tragic things I could ever imagine about life. For reasons I can\u2019t fully understand, it seems as though some people choose not to change.\u201d<\/p>\n
There was a long silence as we walked back to the car. On the drive home, he turned to me and said, \u201cI never, never want that to be said of me, Tim. Life is too precious, too sacred, too important. If you ever see me go stagnant like that, I hope you give me a quick, swift kick where I need it\u2014for Christ\u2019s sake. I hope you\u2019ll love me enough to challenge me to keep growing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Holy Sweat, Tim Hansel, 1987, Word Books Publisher, pp. 54-55<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
They Never Changed A close friend of mine was asked back to his forty-year high school reunion. For months he saved to take his wife back to the place and the people he\u2019d left four decades before. The closer the time came for the reunion, the more excited he became, thinking of all the wonderful … Continue reading “Reunion”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1086\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}