April 9, 2010 - Hisham Hegab

April 9, 2010
How has God changed my life? Have you had somebody ask you that question, lately? I don’t know if you are like me but my initial gut reaction to that question or questions like it is always to cringe a little and feel a little bit uncomfortable. I don’t know if it’s just that I’m not aware of what God is doing in my life at times or some deeper feeling of guilt because I haven’t been living up to what He expects from me. It’s not that God hasn’t changed my life, but I guess because of my own busyness and self-centeredness I don’t always seem to take note of it as closely as I should. I find it fairly easy to recognize His impact on the people around me such as some of the students I interact with through Tech and the Wesley Foundation. I see snapshots of them from time to time as they mature from their freshman year to the time of their graduation and beyond and I often see some incredible spiritual growth and transformation in their lives. I also see it in many of my friends in our small group as God has molded and shaped them over time and called them to some incredible acts of service or to make significant changes in their lives. It seems a little ironic that when asked to see how God has changed me it seems to take a lot more thought and contemplation on my part. It’s not that there haven’t been some significant transformational times in my life where God has taken me places I never expected to go. It’s just harder sometimes to answer that question from the perspective of how He has changed me this past week or month. I say that because I feel our relationship with Christ is a continual process that doesn’t reach an end or climax while we are here on earth.

As I contemplated the question for this devotional, the one recent “change” He placed on my heart is my relationship with my wife, Beth. By far, she has been one of the great agents of change He has placed in my life that has truly transformed me in many ways. We’ve been married for 17 years now and as in any marriage we have had our fair share of struggles and problems, as well as joys and thrills, which have produced what I would call low and high points in our marriage. This past Christmas holiday, I would say we were at one of those low points. I guess the holidays have a tendency to produce a lot of extra stress in our already too busy lives so I was feeling pretty neglected and feeling my needs were not being met. This led to some pretty dreadful arguments. Often at these low times in our relationship, when I am praying about what’s going on I’m often asking God for direction and to help “fix” the problem. Unfortunately, in my mind the “fix” often equates to change Beth so she agrees with what I’m telling her. After one of our arguments from this past holiday season, God finally got through to me and said “Stop asking for Me to change her and start asking how you can bless her.” So I finally changed my focus and with some time things have improved greatly. Needless to say, His approach worked much better than mine.

One of the greater truths He has taught me through this and through my marriage is that our deepest relationships are very much like running a marathon. They are long, and at times hard, races that we must run with perseverance as is described in the first few verses of Hebrews 12. One of the best parts of that passage for me is verse 3 that states “Consider him who has endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose faith.” The reference is to fix our eyes on Jesus so we will not grow weary and lose faith in our day to day struggles. I believe this holds true beyond just our relationship with God but also in our human relationships as well. I pray that he continues to bless our marriage as well as each of our relationships with Him.

In Christ,
Hisham Hegab