Time Changes Everything

I remember a song I used to hear when I was a kid, about how “time changes everything.” The song was made popular by Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys. Incidentally, he was born in 1905 near Kosse, Texas, where I was pastor from 1959 to 1961. His father was a champion fiddler.
The song, written by Tommy Duncan, is about somebody’s personal history of romance, and tells how they were in love, then miserable through a breakup, after which happy again as life went on without each other, for “time changes everything.”
That song came to mind when I was watching the world news this week with its focus on the nation of Syria. Two important places in the New Testament were (are) in Syria: Damascus and Antioch. It was in Damascus where Paul began his journey with Christ, having met him on the way there from Jerusalem. Later, it was at Antioch of Syria where believers in Christ were first called “Christians.” The first missionaries specifically to Gentiles were sent from Antioch.
But how time changes everything!
Today Syria is in upheaval, on the verge of civil war, as a dictatorship is jeopardized by the groundswell of resentment among the people. The revolutionary acts by many civilians are rooted in the common desire of people everywhere to be free and to enjoy the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
When I first started preaching, any conversation about Syria was about Paul in Damascus and the Christians in Antioch. Today the talk is about revolution and civil war, about a government that is killing its own citizens. My, how “time changes everything.” But it’s not just Syria. The entire Middle East is a boiling cauldron of discontent. Certainly this amounts to a call to all of us Christians to pray, depending on the Lord to guide us in our prayers.