“Wait . . . you’re telling me that you learned about this yesterday and you have to start tomorrow?” I could hear my friend’s shock through the phone.
Her question was like a lightbulb illuminating why — or at least partly why — I was so anxious about this big change happening in my life. I hadn’t been able to put my finger on it until my friend put my feelings into words, but she nailed it. The suddenness of the change was just as stressful and concerning to me as the enormity of the change.
That was two weeks ago, and yes, I did make a big change suddenly.
Then this morning, I watched as my (not so) tiny little baby girl got on the bus that would take her to middle school. How? I kept asking. How did this happen? How did we get here, and so fast, too?
And my other child? My oldest daughter? Well, she had the nerve to begin her senior year of high school — something I find both shocking and offensive, as I’m pretty sure I just graduated from high school myself a moment ago.
As you can see, we’re going through quite a lot of changes at my house. And whether we’ve spent years coming to these forks in the road or we literally got a call on Tuesday and jumped into something new on Friday, the change has felt overwhelming. Knowing a big-deal change is coming and having time to prepare (and worry) is hard. Being surprised with a necessary change and having to pivot (and panic) is hard, too. Both are hard, and we’re doing both.
Adjusting to change is a process. (Perhaps now is the time for me to confess that it took me nearly 18 months to adjust to working full-time outside my house after a decade of freelancing from home?) But just like every other season and situation we face in life, we can take comfort and find confidence in knowing that God is with us.
As I was working through all my tangled-up feelings about these changes, I reached for an answer in the one place that never fails me. I turned to God’s Word.
I turned to several bookmarked and underlined passages I’ve leaned on for decades. I also Googled “Bible verse about God never changing.” Both tactics, however, failed to provide the comfort and confidence I was seeking — at least initially. Instead, I began to spiral a bit as I realized that my go-to verses had been taken out of context or even misinterpreted by well-meaning teachers. To be honest, they’d been taken out of context and misinterpreted by me more than once!
Please hear me: Those verses (the ones you’re likely thinking of now) aren’t wrong. But context matters. And realizing I needed to consider so much more than a few helpful words meant I wasn’t getting the quick shot of encouragement I expected.
Thankfully, I didn’t have to spiral completely into despair, because I shared my frustration with a friend who reminded me of another truth. When the Bible doesn’t give us the exact words we’re looking for (or the ones we’ve been taught by trusted leaders and feel so deeply in our souls suddenly fall flat), we aren’t left without an anchor or foundation. What we’re searching for isn’t necessarily wrong. We just need to look again.
My friend went on to point out examples of the way we can see God’s constant character from Genesis to Revelation to today. We see His love and compassion through His interactions with Moses and the Israelites, and we see it in the person of Jesus as He answers question after question from the disciples, and responds to desperate request after desperate request from those who need healing and protection.
I listened to her talk and felt a weight lift from my shoulders. I blew out a big breath and exclaimed, “Of course!”
When changes come — sudden or slow, massive or minute, desired or dreaded — we can find comfort and confidence in our knowledge that God never changes. We still know this by reading verses like, “I am the Lord, and I do not change” (Malachi 3:6 NLT) — and the truth remains even after considering the context of God’s full message to His prophet about judgment, repentance, and mercy.
We see God’s unchanging character in the ways He demonstrates His love and care throughout the Old Testament, and from the way Jesus, God in the flesh, demonstrates that very same love and care through His lifetime. We know that God never leaves us, no matter what is going on around us, because we see Him stand with David and Joshua and Moses and Elijah and Ruth — and we see Jesus assure the disciples that the Holy Spirit will come in His absence, that He will not leave us alone. (Read John 14:15-31 NIV.)
Finally, when change comes — knocking on our door and threatening to knock us off our feet — we can remember the ways God has been a steady presence in our lives before. We can recall the ways He has shown us love and offered us peace, and in that find comfort and encouragement.
Are you trying to wrap your mind around a sudden change? Or perhaps you’ve been dreading the end of a season or the beginning of a new one, and now the time is here to face the reality you never wished for. Maybe what’s thrown you for a loop is even a good change, one you’ve prayed for or pursued — and yet you still find yourself struggling to process the way things are simply different than the way they used to be.
No matter what change you’re walking through right now, take comfort in knowing God is with you and He is a steady, everlasting, loving Father who is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
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