Blame it on the Changes

Spoiler alert: This post is about the positives of change. I just couldn't resist borrowing the title of a Dashboard Confessional song.

My most content moment of the day occurred when I flopped on my bed around 3:00pm and cocooned myself in a warm comforter that had just been removed from the dryer. As I lay there like a burrito, looking through the blinds at the afternoon rain shower, a thought popped into my head: “How marvelous it is that we are changeable.” (I realize this makes me sound like a complete oddball. I have no retort. Just push through, I guess.)

Seriously though! I spend so many minutes of my inner monologue berating myself for being such an inconsistent human being. I am fully aware that I am moody, indecisive, and predictably unpredictable. But the realization that occurred to me this afternoon put all that frustration in a new light.

God literally invented change. His nature is constant – immutable in his essence, mutable in his expression (shout out to Theo 1 with Dr. Davis). Psalm 18 says that the Lord is our rock and our fortress. I am not a rock, nor am I anyone’s fortress. I am about as solid as Jell-O. And while I know that I have some development ahead of me regarding discipline and consistency, I also know that God chose to make us changeable!

Think about it. Human beings are affected by the stimuli of environments and atmospheres, the rollercoasters of our personal circumstances, weather, the phases of the moon (supposedly), the subconscious, hormones…! While we are fully responsible for what we do with our moods, it is human nature to be affected by what is around us. Often, we consider that negative and undesirable. But what a beautiful opportunity to appreciate how our Creator affects us!

I see how emotional men get when they receive large sums of money. How can one say they are simply unemotional about God? How can one draw near the fire and not be warmed by it?

(Another Theology class paraphrase that I cannot correctly attribute)

I understand that there are all kinds of people and personalities and therefore, varying levels of emotionality. But really – what a wonder. Our Constant made us movable, thereby making himself the solid rock on which we stand firm. He has ingrained foundational aspects of his nature in each of us, by creating us in his image. In some respect (though expressed very differently), we all long for the stability and certainty of a few things: identity, love, and purpose.

Until those pursuits are satisfied by the irrevocable inheritance given us through Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, the truly unconditional love of the Father, and the guidance of the Holy Spirit in God’s will… we run around wildly, repeatedly changing our approaches and attempts to manipulate the world around us to secure those longings. When we know God and believe what he says about us, our previously shape-shifting hearts thrive in the quality of life we were designed to live – in honest and humble relationship with the Lord, being shaped by his grace and nestled more deeply into his will. When we are rightly related to God through Jesus, he becomes our joy! We get stirred up about the things of God, and nothing else produces a response anywhere close to our response when the Lord is moving in our hearts and lives.

‘Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face,

and the things of earth will grow strangely dim,

in the light of His glory and grace.’

Our Constant made us movable. I am so grateful that when I am tossing like the waves, the pull of our Father’s love rights my rhythms. I picture him laying an arm across my shoulders and drawing me to his side, so that my steps align with his. I am thankful for the security of my fortress, and for the unchanging offer of refuge.

I am also thankful that I feel the tossing, and the pull, and the draw. I know the concept of the Unmoved Mover is too Greek for most people’s liking, but here the imagery serves this truth well. I am glad to be steadied by God, but I am also glad to be swayed by him. I am thankful for sensitivity to the Spirit, for the burden of intercession, and for the discernment of other people's emotions and motivations.

I laugh every time I hear Psalm 139:14 in the NLT: “Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!” I’ve spent so much time wishing I was less complex, especially when I can’t figure myself out. But I have to acknowledge that the second half of that verse is just as true: “Your workmanship is marvelous – how well I know it.” I am thankful for the certainty and security that all my inner workings were purposefully knit together by the Creator of the universe. I am so grateful that, because of Jesus, my whole life is now about the way I move in response to God's movement in me.