Change is hard. My personality type demands routine. I’m happy when life stays the same without unexpected surprises. When standards in my life fluctuate, I feel all kinds of emotions: worry, unease, anxiousness, and a plethora of other feelings.
Change can consist of life-changing events such as divorce, a promotion at work, or moving to a different house or city. It can also elicit unsettled feelings from something as minor as a new haircut or your son’s updated baseball schedule.
In a changing world, most of us crave consistency—where life behaves or happens in the same way. We desire our path to operate on the constant—straight and not up and down with winding curves. Each morning we open our eyes with trepidation to see what changes in our world await us.
We can all attest that the last few years have been a big pot on the stove that we throw in all kinds of ingredients that create constant turmoil. We’ve never seen a world that vacillates so much—not even day to day but hour to hour.
The winds of change affect us all differently. I have a friend who didn’t want to move because he’d have to find a new grocery store. I’m currently thrown out of my norm as I search to find a new church home. I attended the same one for 32 years. That’s crazy! It’s more than half my life. No wonder I’m somewhat nervous each Sunday as I pull into a new parking lot or sit in a chair in unfamiliar surroundings. My family is also deep in the process of moving my parents to another town to a retirement community. Change…it swirls all around me.
My reassurance always lies in Hebrews 13:8: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” Oh, how that small verse explodes all over my circumstances and brings peace. We need something that will never change. Something we can cling to when the winds of the world blow hard and the rain pelts the landscape. I think about all of the attributes of Jesus: gracious, forgiving, loving, warrior, protector, comforter, and a hundred others. None of those characteristics ever changes. How he was yesterday is the same way we can rely on him tomorrow.
If we ponder the synonyms for constant, we arrive at consistent, stable, reliable, continual. We desire a person we can count on, that we can trust. Someone who is our life preserver in the storm. Earthly people will disappoint. Life’s circumstances will move around like a tilt-a-whirl, but Jesus stands resolute, our anchor that stabilizes our surroundings.
If in your circumstances you’re standing on shifting ground or sinking sand, then fix your eyes upon Jesus. Our lives may falter, but Jesus won’t. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
