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But change did not break us.

I've Never Been Good At Change

I've never been good at change. I've got to get that right out in the open.

That was the first thing the spirit prompted me to talk about when my dad, George Privett, had one of those wonky board meetings. He sent a resume to every district in North America and got a call to come out to the Bible College way back then to be dean of students. And we moved from North Carolina where there's okra to Colorado where there's no okra. I learned snow and down jackets and hiking boots, and I became a Broncos fan when they had the orange crush. But, change is hard, especially cultural change.

I was picked on there. They told me to "say goodnight to Mary Ellen, to Jim Bob, and to Grandpa and Grandma" with my southern accent. But you know Nazareth Bible College invested in me way back in '77. There were trombone lessons and voice lessons. I didn't know how those moments would prepare me for the journey ahead. I didn't quite know how it would work out that a change would happen, but things happened in the change that prepared me for the next change.

So I guess I should say I've never been good at change, but God is really good at change. I was kind of scared. A couple years later, I headed to Northwest Nazarene with a new trombone after selling my car. I had a trombone scholarship, but now I had no car. People thought I was crazy.  But I packed up and left home.

Then I found that all of these things that happened while I was in Colorado had prepared me for other things, and I was called to preach while at college in 1980. I had to change my major. Then I went to Nazarene Seminary to deepen my own heart. Then I met this amazing woman on August 19, 1985 and asked her to marry me two weeks later. We were married in the seminary chapel in 1986 by my dad.

And all of a sudden, we started talking to DS's, and we went to Pierce, Idaho, which mostly has snow and elk. Our church was 28 people, and 20 people had moved away.

But change did not break us. It molded us and shaped us.

We set aside stuff that did not matter. It's amazing how many garage sales you need to leave town. Dozens of times, God has provided. I thought of three things about change. Change has to be the call of God.

It has to be God. Because when life gets hard, you're going to go back to that call. And then secondly, it has to be confirmed by Godly counsel. 

The thing about a calling is you have to release what you have, and the people you love really have to buy in. My dad always said we'd never go anywhere unless our whole family was of one mind. 

God never changes us in isolation. He uses relationships to lead us through change. And every change in my life, even the changes I'm going through right now, God provides.
 

- Rev. Jonathan Privett serves as Senior Pastor Tempe Nazarene Church and as adjunct professor at NBC.