The only thing that never changes in this world is that change is always with us. For very honorable reasons our senior pastor is leaving our church in 5 or 6 months. So we wonder what all that will mean. We have plenty of ministry and mission things going on and each of us has personal concerns about what the changes will mean for our own service and growth and fellowship. For our family it will be the second pastoral change in three years and we still miss our "old pastor" even though we like our current pastor very much indeed.
We mature (or only grow older), our parents age and even die, our children grow up and our grandchildren grow up and our friends move and our jobs change and retirement leaves us busier than working ever did, but requires flexibility and sturdiness of heart and God's plans for us generally include surprises that are, at least initially, unwelcome.
I look around and see folks dealing with changes in health and family structure, financial ups and downs, the tender love with which parents attend their children's challenges and those who are restructuring their lives with a newly empty chair at the table.
This is why the immutable, unchanging nature of God is so dear and precious that it is nearly unbelievable. In fact, it might actually be unbelievable without the Spirit of God helping us conceive of our perfect God being bigger than the broken, mean, lonely, unlovely bits of ourselves that we mistake for our whole selves.
But in the Bible we read and are comforted and encouraged: "If we are disloyal, God stays faithful because God can’t be anything else than what God is." So, true: God can only be what God is. God is ALWAYS with us, caring about us, caring for us, even when we find we have nothing left with which to care about ourselves. He never gives up on us, though we may turn our back on God no matter the cost. God never changes the game, loses patience with anyone who seeks God no matter the number of times the seeker has fallen short. God does not demand great sacrifices or tributes save this: to keep giving to God all that distresses us, separates us from God and from each other. This giving to God of all that harms us does war with our selfishness and ego and our foot-stomping, willful demand that things be as we want them to be.
So in the coming weeks, when I feel like kicking a can down the street muttering about how I don't want this change, I'm going instead to thank God. I thank God that His love is perfect; His understanding is complete; His power is total and His commitment is unfailingly to the highest good of each of beloved children.
OK, I know it sounds silly, but it is no less true and necessary to say: I will thank God that God knows what God is doing; that God is not only "maybe" right in taking us down this path; that God sees where we cannot yet see so already rejoices in how we are being blessed into the future. Unfolding before us in new and exciting ways are good things so we can just keep our hand in His Hand, our eyes on Him, our will open to adjustment that we might conform more tenderly to God's good and perfect Will today and forever and ever. AMEN
*2 Timothy 2:13
We mature (or only grow older), our parents age and even die, our children grow up and our grandchildren grow up and our friends move and our jobs change and retirement leaves us busier than working ever did, but requires flexibility and sturdiness of heart and God's plans for us generally include surprises that are, at least initially, unwelcome.
I look around and see folks dealing with changes in health and family structure, financial ups and downs, the tender love with which parents attend their children's challenges and those who are restructuring their lives with a newly empty chair at the table.
This is why the immutable, unchanging nature of God is so dear and precious that it is nearly unbelievable. In fact, it might actually be unbelievable without the Spirit of God helping us conceive of our perfect God being bigger than the broken, mean, lonely, unlovely bits of ourselves that we mistake for our whole selves.
But in the Bible we read and are comforted and encouraged: "If we are disloyal, God stays faithful because God can’t be anything else than what God is." So, true: God can only be what God is. God is ALWAYS with us, caring about us, caring for us, even when we find we have nothing left with which to care about ourselves. He never gives up on us, though we may turn our back on God no matter the cost. God never changes the game, loses patience with anyone who seeks God no matter the number of times the seeker has fallen short. God does not demand great sacrifices or tributes save this: to keep giving to God all that distresses us, separates us from God and from each other. This giving to God of all that harms us does war with our selfishness and ego and our foot-stomping, willful demand that things be as we want them to be.
So in the coming weeks, when I feel like kicking a can down the street muttering about how I don't want this change, I'm going instead to thank God. I thank God that His love is perfect; His understanding is complete; His power is total and His commitment is unfailingly to the highest good of each of beloved children.
OK, I know it sounds silly, but it is no less true and necessary to say: I will thank God that God knows what God is doing; that God is not only "maybe" right in taking us down this path; that God sees where we cannot yet see so already rejoices in how we are being blessed into the future. Unfolding before us in new and exciting ways are good things so we can just keep our hand in His Hand, our eyes on Him, our will open to adjustment that we might conform more tenderly to God's good and perfect Will today and forever and ever. AMEN
*2 Timothy 2:13
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