Back to School 
Pause
For most of us, a new school year has begun. A time when we come back and see old friends we haven’t seen for a while. We have changed, many times physically, emotionally, and maybe even spiritually. We have been changed by summer experiences and relationships of which only we know.
What was your summer like?
How have you been changed?
Let us now listen for where God meets us in these changes.
Listen
Everyone who heard him was baffled. They questioned each other, “Isn’t he the one who was wreaking havoc among those in Jerusalem who called on this name? Hadn’t he come here to take those same people as prisoners to the chief priests?”
But Saul grew stronger and stronger. He confused the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus is the Christ.
Acts 9:21-22
Think
When school restarts, the people around us sometimes seem different. It is hard to reconcile the person and their actions today with the person you knew just a short while back at the end of the last school year. And sometimes, we are the changed person, and it can be hard for other people to believe.
After watching the Harry Potter series of movies, one of the most fun things to do is to go back and watch the first one. You see a clumsy boy who is uncertain of who he is or who he will become. If you just saw the first and last movies, it would be hard to believe that this Harry would ever become the confident and bold Harry of the final movie.
Like Harry Potter, or maybe like your peers at school, Saul was transformed. And the people around him had a hard time believing who he had become.
Do you think you have changed this summer? What experiences or relationships changed you?
Randall Curtis
Pray
Lord, thank you for changing me and helping me grow. Help me to see changes in others. Amen.
Go
Before you go from this place, take a deep breath.
Open your heart to the possibilities that come from change.
Have no fear.
Rest in the assurance that God is with you, wherever the way may lead you.
