Changes

Will Rogers once quipped, "It's not that I'm afraid to die; it just that I've been alive for as long as I can remember and I don't like change."  As with most things he said, most people can identify.  We really don't like change so much.  We take great comfort in  the fact that the way things worked out yesterday can be counted on to work out today as well.

Of course, there are some changes we do welcome: A promotion, a windfall, losing those extra pounds, getting the leaky faucet fixed, having your braces removed for good.  Change that we look forward to, which benefits us in some way it welcome change.  Welcome change is not the change I'm talking about - I'm talking about the change that happens without our input and without our approval.  I'm talking about most change, the kind of upsetting change written about in the little book entitled, "Who Moved My Cheese?"

I'm not going to try to recap the book or even make a direct reference, it just happened to pop into my mind as I was writing that last paragraph and it is a good illustration taken from the business world, which is constantly in flux, using the illustration of a mouse vexed over his cheese being moved.  It's a pretty good read and doesn''t take long.  You might want to check it out.

The point I'm driving at is that while we resist change in general, in general change is coming, regardless of our resistance.  Change is the vital dynamic in things that are alive and growing.  Growing itself is systematic change.  Living things get bigger, stronger, faster, developing and changing on a cellular level constantly, and in more obvious ways, reaching milestones along the way.

The deal is that change happens.  Sometimes change will be welcome.  Often it will not.  Regardless, it will happen.  We can embrace it, cope with it, lament it, curse it - but we cannot stop it with but one exception: Stop living.  Living things grow and growth is change.  There is no change occurring in a cemetery.  But as long as you are alive, expect change.  Go ahead and enjoy things as they are today but be prepared for those things to change tomorrow.

Paul said, "I have learned the secret of being content in any and every circumstance" (Phil 4:12), which implies the constant change he lived through.  Solomon said, "There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens" (Eccl 3:1).  Since every thing has its time, when it's time for something else, there must be change.

There is but one static point in life, one thing that will not move about, one anchor we can hold on to in a sea of constant upheaval: "God, who is enthroned from of old, who does not change" (Ps 55:19). Embrace the changes of life, holding on to God who instead of constantly changing is The Constant, yesterday, today and forever (Heb 13:8).  Jus' Say'n.