Change

I hate change.

And since I'm fairly certain you didn't grasp the fullness of the intensity behind that emotion, let me give you some illustrations to help you understand.

a.)  For you Lord of the Rings fans, I hate it like we hate the moment when Frodo tells Sam to go home.

b.)  For you Narnia fans, I hate it like we hate hearing Aslan tell the Pevensie children that they don't get to come back to Narnia.

c.)  For you Harry Potter fans, I hate it like we hate that evil lady in pink with the horrible giggle.

d.)  For you Star Wars fans, I hate it like we hate the fact that we can't combine the actors from the original three movies with the lightsaber duels from the new ones.

(If you're not a fan of any of those movies, come back and finish reading this after you get counseling. ;-)

In short, change makes me want to a.) yell, "NOOOOOOOOOO!", b.) curl up on the floor and cry hysterically, c.) punch something really, really hard, and d.) pout because I can't just combine my favorite elements of both the new and the old and ditch the rest.

...........needless to say, change doesn't bring out the best in me.............

So today when I saw a picture of my adorable little brother, at about six years old, using a curved piece of okra to pretend to be Captain Hook, I thought, "Why, God?  Why change?  When something is so good just like it is, why change it?"

His answer was simple and, in my opinion, insufficient: "I never change."

I argued with Him.  "I know that, God.  I know You never change.  I'm asking why You choose to change other things--things that are so good and bring so much joy."

"Because if anything else in your world was changeless, you would trust in it instead of Me."

...................oh.

I couldn't argue with Him that time.  I knew He was right.  There have been times when parts of my world seemed changeless, and I did begin to trust in them instead.

See, I think as humans we crave stability.  We long for continuity.  We ache for sameness.  We pine after the constant.  We want the unchanging.  He created us that way.  And He created the whole of our world to be utterly incapable of fulfilling those desires.  He made it that way on purpose and for a purpose:

He made it so that He is the only One who can satisfy our need for the changeless.

Everything else will let us down eventually.  Everyone else will go away someday.  Everything but Him will change.  If we put our hope and our trust in those things and those people, we will be shaken to the core when change happens.  They weren't made to be changeless, nor were they made to bear the trust that belongs to something that is.

But.  If we put our hope in the One who cannot and will not ever change, we are not shaken when change happens. Instead, when change rocks our world, we stand firm and "we say with confidence,

'The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid.  What can man do to me?'" (Hebrews 13:6)

I don't think it's a coincidence that this verse comes only two verses before the one that so perfectly describes His changeless nature:

"Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever." (v. 8)

In the context of verse 8, I think you could almost reword verse 6 to say, "The Changeless is my helper; I will not be afraid.  What can change do to me?"

So when we ache from the change, when want to yell and cry and punch and pout, may it push us ever closer to the Unchanging One and teach us to trust in Him more with every passing change.

...and may we remember that Sam saved Frodo anyway, the Pevensies really did go back to Narnia in the end, the evil pink lady got what was coming to her, and all six Star Wars movies have the same great theme song.