When we are insecure, our first reaction to change is almost always negative. We resist change. This can be particularly true of veterans with a military past who have moved away, moved around, seen hard and difficult things, and then returned home again.
Resisting change seldom works because change is inevitable. It’s going to happen whether we like it or not. You can’t stop growth. You can’t stop change. Sometimes we resent it. And sometimes we just ignore it, pretend it doesn’t exist and we resent it.
The older we get, the more we want security and anything that shakes our comfortable nest threatens us. We don’t like that. We don’t like things to be unpredictable. We don’t like things to change. We want to know exactly where it’s going. We want everything to be programmed, right in place. If anything comes up that is a surprise, we resent it, because it gives us that feeling of uncertainty. So we complain and criticize and we gripe and we grumble.
Change always produces stress. Even positive changes. Negative things like an illness or death, divorce, getting fired from your job, or uprooting your family to move to a new location cause stress. But even positive change causes stress: a wedding, a baby, a graduation, a promotion, a personal achievement. Any kind of change — positive or negative — can cause stress in your life.
We might begin to wonder, is there anything permanent in life? Yes, there is. Hebrews 13:8 says, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”
While everything else is changing, he remains changeless. All that Jesus Christ was yesterday that we read about in the Bible, He is today. And all that He is today, He will be tomorrow. And Jesus Christ is already in your future. God is not limited by time. He’s past, present and future. When you get in the future, He’s going to already be there. That’s comforting because I know whatever change I go through, He’s going to be there ahead of me.
You will never fear the future if you’ll remember and focus on three unchangeable facts about Christ, about God. If you’ll build your life on these three things, you’ll have no problem coping with change. You’ll have no problem dealing with the fear of the future. These things are unchanging. They never change. They’re immovable. They cannot be shaken.
1. God’s love for you will never change.
Jeremiah 31:3 “I have loved you with an everlasting love.” It is permanent, so you can build your life on it. God’s love for you will never change. When the winds of change are blowing everything away and everything’s being uprooted, we need little rocks that we can hold onto. The love of God is the first rock you hold onto when change comes.
2. God’s word will never change.
God’s word is the same yesterday, today and forever. So you build your life on God’s word. Psalm 1:19 “Forever, O Lord, is Thy word is settled in heaven.”
The fact of the matter is, the Bible, God’s word, has stood the test of time. It has managed to stay, in spite of all the cultural changes and all the differences for thousands of years. And it’s still relevant. It has been attacked by dictators, ridiculed by critics, burned and outlawed. But it’s outlasted all those people. It is permanent.
3. God’s ultimate purpose will never, never change.
He has a plan. He is working it out. The fact of the matter is that God is at work in human history. He has an ultimate plan for the history of man. Success is discovering what God made me for — God’s plan for my life — and getting right in the center of it — living in harmony with God’s plan which never changes and God’s word which never changes and God’s plan which never changes.
You cannot control your future but you can put your trust in the things that are certain.
How to Cope with Unexpected Change, by Pastor Rick Warren, is an article from Pastors.com. © 2012 Pastors.com.
