You Can't Move In

Bryan York enjoying his temporary lodging.

I was loading up the car with boxes of books to take to our new apartment when my cell phone rang. When I answered the phone Taylor, one of the staff for Jefferson Gables Apartments, said, “Mr. York I’m so sorry but you cannot move in tomorrow.  We found an error.”
“An error, what kind of error?”
“We have to replace the entire carpet. You can’t move in for at least two weeks. But the good news is you will have new carpet.”

I’m glad she saw something positive. All I could think of was wait, I’ve got everything lined up for us to move tomorrow and you are literally just now informing me that we can’t move!  Where are we supposed to stay?
           
As if she was reading my mind, Taylor interrupted my thoughts, “You can stay in our furnished apartment until your place is ready.” Wow, I didn’t know they had a furnished apartment.  But that would certainly be a great solution.
           
So here we are today, in a nicely furnished apartment. I’m glad I did not complain or protest to Taylor. She was just relaying a hard message. Yes, change can be inconveniencing—especially last-minute deviations. But is it the changes that define us or how we react and adapt to them?
 
Meditation
Exodus 5:19--The Israelite foremen saw that they were in trouble when they were told, “You cannot reduce your daily quota of bricks.”
 
It was horrible news.  The Israelites were required to produce so many bricks a day for their Egyptian overlords. Pharaoh was not pleased that Moses wanted him to release the Jews so they could go and worship God.  He concluded they were slackers. Instead of supplying them straw to make bricks he ordered that they must go and find straw themselves and make bricks with no letup in meeting their daily quota.  But they could not possibly comply with Pharaoh’s edict and that meant punishment and suffering.  So they did the reasonable thing and confronted Moses—the source of their trouble.  And Moses did the logical thing and confronted God for putting them in an awful position with no promised deliverance. In essence, God was not letting them move yet. 
           
God permitted adversity because His plan far exceeded their momentary pain. He would let all of Egypt experience firsthand His power and see that He alone, was Yahweh, and there were no other gods besides Him. He would teach the Israelites to be resilient and flexible.
           
Life is replete with messages like “You can’t move in.” Just remember that restrictions, setbacks, plan changes and unexpected obstacles test our attitude and flexibility. This give us an opportunity to trust God; to lean not on our own binah (Hebrew for understanding—the capacity for rational thought) [1] but “Always let him lead you, and he will clear the road for you to follow” (Proverbs 3:6, CEV).
 
Inspiration
People who are resilient tend to be flexible—flexible in the way they think about challenges and flexible in the way they react emotionally to stress.  They are not wedded to a specific style of coping.—Steven M. Southwick & Dennis S. Charney in Resilience
 
©2021 Daniel York  ARR.  Reveration is the weekly devotional ministry of First Cause.  If you would like to receive these devotionals go to www.firstcause.org and click on the "Click here to receive weekly devotionals" box.  Unlimited permission to copy this devotional without altering text or profiteering is allowed subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.     
 
Ecclesiastes 12:10-The Teacher sought to find delightful sayings and to accurately write words of truth.  (Holman CSB)
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[1] HCSB Study Bible, (2010), Proverbs 3:5, Holman Bible Publishers