I can’t stand change. I like things “the way they are.” So, my idol is control, and God has been exposing just how deep my idolatry runs.
It seems as though nearly every week during this Covid-19 season there have been changes; changes to schooling, to dining out, to shopping, to church…changes abound. And it can be so taxing to the soul to have to navigate through all of them.
But it’s to my shame that I can be so burdened by change because God never guaranteed a change-free life. In fact, in a fallen world, I should expect change. Yet, I so easily believe that things will remain static, that once life is set a certain way, it’ll stay that way. And life may stay a certain way for a while, but inevitably, change comes. Decay happens. Death ensues.
In such a world, it can be deeply troubling to plant a spiritual flag in this life and build my little kingdom here. That just leads to disappointment at best, despair at worst. And this all surges in my heart when I forget that God is in control of all things and that He doesn’t change. In Psa 77, Asaph, in despair during a season of suffering, wondered if God had withdrawn His love and compassion. And when he thought that way, he says in v. 10 that it was his grief to believe that “the hand of the Most High has changed.”
What steadied his heart was to go back into personal and national history and remember God’s “wonders of old.” The holy God had worked wonders for His people: He redeemed them from Egypt, and He led them like flock through the seabed.
And so, Asaph teaches us that when changes interrupt your life and you’re tempted to fear, take a moment to consider the power and love of God for you. The same power and love that conspired to redeem your life from sin. The same power and love that always sustains us, moment by moment. God is unchanging. When you consider His promises to work all things together for our good, to never forsake us, and to love us, consider that these are unchanging. Rest your heart in them and experience His peace.
God’s gracious promises are the only sure things in an unsure world.
