I recently attended a course at work called "Managing Change." My employer has recently merged with another company and therefore there is change on the horizon. For some of us our working patterns will change and for others there will be doing different jobs with new responsibilities. Staff will react to this in differing ways, some will embrace change and some will resist it. There will be some who will look back on what they perceive as the good old days and will remember those days with fondness and not want to move forward and change. But as the working situation has now changed, so they will also have to face that reality.

As Christians we too face the challenge of change. We all know that God wants changes to be made in our individual and Church life but we can be very resistant to this. Sometimes we may be scared of change and leaving the security we know behind. Fear of the unknown maybe. Other times we just stubbornly refuse to change thinking that we know better than God.

After God rescued the Israelites from Pharaoh it didn't take them long to start complaining and saying that they wanted to go back to Egypt. They seemed to have had rather selective memories about the past they left behind in Egypt. It suddenly seemed very appealing and they quickly forgot about the hardships they had endured under Pharaoh.

What about us? How do we react when we feel God wants changes in our life? Do we rejoice that He is refining us and changing us to be conformed to His image or do we resist and moan? Lets ensure that with God's grace that we embrace change and grow in our relationship with Christ.

Richard Speller is webmaster of http://www.words2encourage.co.uk and author of Christian Comment Blog.