If history repeats itself, my family endured the Ten Plagues in 2003.
Following God’s leading to a different position in ministry, I accepted the call to a wonderful church in Minnesota. It was difficult to leave our sweet community, a thriving ministry and a new home in Texas. But we believed God’s calling was clear and, with the warm hospitality of our receiving church family, we expected the transition to be perfect.
Then the troubles began.
One of the church leaders generously offered us a rental house while we searched for a permanent home. In his defense, he warned us that he had recently purchased the property and had not been able to inspect the home and make necessary repairs. Two weeks after we arrived, the dishwasher water line erupted and soaked the kitchen. Soon afterward, the sewer line backed up into the basement. The telephone worked intermittently, the wood floors creaked loudly, and a smoke odor saturated everything we owned. Apparently, the home used to be a kind of halfway house because, a month later, a young lady appeared on our darkened front porch at 11:30 p.m. looking for “the shelter.” A raccoon got trapped in the attic, eight baby ducks required rescue from the exterior window well, a glass shower door fell off its track while one of my children was bathing and, during a thunderstorm, lightning left a three-foot hole in the roof. I wouldn’t have been surprised if locusts swept through our neighborhood and all the tap water turned to blood.
Each new “outbreak” made me and my family more sensitive to the fact that we were living in a season of incredible change. Months prior, our lives had been settled, secure and satisfying. Then, suddenly, a thousand miles from where we started, in a new place, with a new church, in a new position, meeting new friends at a new school, and searching for a new home, the plagues seemed to be a sign that change wasn’t going to be easy.
The truth is, the whole world is changing around us, whether we notice it or not. In just 30 short years, music transitioned from clumsy 8-track tapes to cassettes to compact discs to MP3s to online playlists. These kinds of welcomed changes make my world easier to manage.
But I despise the changes that are difficult and unexpected. Pandemics, political shifts, financial ups and downs, reports of violence—these unexpected events are like a discordant note struck in the melody of life. It’s the change nobody likes.
How do we stay focused and balanced in the midst of so much change? What can we cling to when our world seems to be turning upside down and inside out? When life is topsy-turvy, we need an anchor. We must hold tight to what never changes in an ever-changing world.
Sharpie Focus
The subtitle description of Psalm 102 is “The prayer of an afflicted man.” While it’s impossible to determine the writer or the circumstances behind the verses, it’s clear that he was in the clutch of change. Verses 1-11 convey a heart that was anxious, frustrated, weak, and beat up:
Hear my prayer, O Lord;
let my cry for help come to you.
Do not hide your face from me
when I am in distress.
Turn your ear to me;
when I call, answer me quickly.
For my days vanish like smoke;
my bones burn like glowing embers.
My heart is blighted and withered like grass;
I forget to eat my food.
Because of my loud groaning
I am reduced to skin and bones.
I am like a desert owl,
like an owl among the ruins.
I lie awake; I have become
like a bird alone on a roof.
All day long my enemies taunt me;
those who rail against me use my name as a curse.
For I eat ashes as my food
and mingle my drink with tears
because of your great wrath,
for you have taken me up and thrown me aside.
My days are like the evening shadow;
I wither away like grass.
He suffered sleepless nights and wasted days. It’s not difficult to identify with one or more of the emotions expressed in this text.
In the middle part of this psalm, the author expresses confidence in God’s restoration—not only for himself, but with a larger view of Israel’s redemption. However, it’s verses 23-28 which are of particular encouragement for God’s people today:
In the course of my life [God] broke my strength;
he cut short my days.
So I said:
“Do not take me away, O my God, in the midst of my days;
your years go on through all generations.
In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth,
and the heavens are the work of your hands.
They will perish, but you remain;
they will all wear out like a garment.
Like clothing you will change them
and they will be discarded.
But you remain the same,
and your years will never end.
The children of your servants will live in your presence;
their descendants will be established before you.”
Notice a repeating confidence in these lines. In the midst of my fleeting days, God’s years go on (v. 24). God was in the beginning before time even began (v. 25) and, when everything is done, God will remain (v. 26). People and life change like old t-shirts that tatter and are thrown away, but God is unchanging.
He’s indelible.
I used to watch my daughter write on the sidewalk with oversized chalk sticks. She’d spend half an hour creating a giant masterpiece in front of the house and, in a moment, her creation could be washed or swept away. Contrast her artistry with my son’s who chose to draw on the side our house with a Sharpie marker. No amount of scrubbing could remove the scrawling from the porous brick.
God is immutable and immovable. He is like a Sharpie marker: waterproof and permanent. He’s the same yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13:8). God is the only thing that never changes in an ever-changing world. When life seems unpredictable, I cling to three aspects of our indelible God: His perfections, His precepts and His purposes.
Who Are You, God?
My friend Ed is tall, stout, laid back, entrepreneurial and flexible. I describe who Ed is by what Ed is like. Ed is defined by his attributes. Similarly, God is defined by His attributes. And, while I would never claim that my or Ed’s characteristics are perfect, God’s attributes or “perfections” are flawless. This means that God is not only loving; He is perfectly loving. God is more than faithful; He is perfectly faithful. His power, His grace, His wisdom, His beauty, His justice, His sufficiency, and His will are all…perfect.
And, because God’s attributes are impeccable, they are eternal. This means that God forever “remains the same” (Psalm 102:26). In Malachi 3:6, God declares, “I the Lord do not change.” James argues that, while human beings are prone to get tossed back and forth like a waves of the sea (James 1:6), God “does not change like shifting shadows” (1:17).
This means God never has mood swings. He isn’t capricious. He doesn’t mature or develop new abilities. God doesn’t get arthritis, is never hard of hearing, and never forgets as time goes on. In the words of the great hymn, “Great is Thy Faithfulness,” “There is no shadow of turning with Thee; Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not; As Thou hast been, Thou forever will be.”
The implications are mind-boggling and heart-warming. The God who parted the Red Sea waters during the Exodus uses the same power to remove obstacles in my life today. The God who forgave the prostitute in the streets of Jerusalem offers the same forgiveness for my worst sins today. The God who rescued people from demons in the Bible operates with the same power to release me form the addictions and vices that taunt my life today. The God who defended His people from unrighteous enemies long ago rules with the same justice today. History changes, but God never does.
This truth made its way from a doctrinal paper to my heart when our home air conditioner broke down in the middle of a Texas summer. Barely a year out of seminary and living on a very modest income, we decided to hire a small, independent company for the repair. When our home wouldn’t drop below 83 degrees, we learned that they installed the wrong equipment and after several weeks of frustrating phone calls, the company went out of business. I was angry, frustrated, anxious, and helpless. Then, in the middle of managing the madness, the thought occurred to me, “God hasn’t moved. Life is different for me today—I’m hotter and poorer than I was a month ago— but God remains the same. God is still just. He still sustains me. He is still aware of my needs.” I found my way out of hopelessness and down the path to rejoicing by affirming the unchanging perfections of God.
Very Preceptive
Because God never changes, it is not surprising that what God says doesn’t change. Because “all Scripture is God-breathed” (2 Timothy 3:16), it is true, perfect, and constant. “Precept” is used to describe God’s laws, commands, instructions, or principles. The word appears 27 times in the Bible and 21 times in Psalm 119, a marvelous chapter declaring the value and virtue of God’s Word.
Isaiah, writing to people who had lost sight of God’s timeless commands, reflected,
“All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall, because the breath of the Lord blows on them. Surely the people are grass. The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever.” (Isaiah 40:6)
The Apostle Peter, quoting Isaiah’s verse, noted that Christians have “been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God” (1 Peter 1:23, emphasis added). God’s living Word is eternal and unchanging.
This means that we hold in our hands the same tool that the ancients used to cope in their ever-changing world. The precepts that made Solomon wise, gave Moses direction and brought people to repentance long ago are sitting on my bedside table. God’s promise to Joshua is as sure for me today as they were 3000 years ago: “Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful” (Joshua 1:8). I can navigate the change around me by holding fast to the Word of truth.
I witnessed the strength of this blessing in 2007. A Category 5 tornado tore through Greensburg, Kansas on May 4 and devastated an entire community with its 200 MPH winds. Our friend, Norma, described how her family’s home was swept off its foundation while her parents huddled in a basement closet. Overwhelmed by the destruction, my oldest son and I took an 8-hour trip north to see if we could offer a helping hand.
When we arrived, Paul and Shirley Unruh gave us their post-catastrophe “tour,” pointing out where a barn used to stand, highlighting the sofa by the road that used to be in the living room a hundred yards away and noting that the splintered trees used to be in full bloom. On the second day, as we packed and loaded salvageable possessions from Shirley’s middle school classroom, Paul asked, “Why do you think God let this happen?” It was the question I had been wondering but didn’t dare ask. As a pastor, I knew there had to be a “right” answer, but I struggled to put words together that wouldn’t come across as pat and insensitive. After a pause, Paul smiled and said with confidence forged from a strong Mennonite heritage, “Here’s what I think. God promised, ‘I will never leave you or forsake you.’ And I believe that in all things, God works for the good of those who love Him. God isn’t gone. His Word tells me so.”
The Unruhs inspired me to cling to God’s unchanging precepts and promises as my anchor when everything else in life was changing. Their confidence was in the fact that “Heaven and earth will pass away, but [God’s] words will never pass away” (Matthew 24:35). God is indelible.
Permanent Purpose
In addition to God’s person and precepts, the final anchor that secures me in changing times is God’s unalterable purposes. Like the Unruh’s, I have sometimes found myself asking the question, “Why in the world is this happening?” The question implies that I could better handle change if I knew why the change was happening. If the purpose is high enough and clear enough, I can endure, and even embrace change.
Years ago, a construction company was tearing up the road on my normal route to work. The dust and the detour were a minor irritant. Then, in conversation with a neighbor, I learned that the project was making way for a new shopping center that would include my favorite coffee shop. Suddenly, the disruption was tolerable. With the goal in sight, I could handle the change.
The psalmist declares, “The plans of the Lord stand firm forever, the purposes of his heart through all generations” (Psalm 33:11). In other words, what God is doing today is the same thing that He’s been doing for thousands of years. What He had in mind when He commanded Noah to build and ark or sent David out to slay a giant or called Paul to preach to the Gentiles is what is on God’s mind today and forever. God is still accomplishing His eternal purposes.
These purposes have a human and divine dimension. On the one hand, God’s goal is to transform my life, to make me more like Jesus. And, so, God permits small and great changes around me to bring about a greater change in me. When a shopper backed into my wife’s car in the parking lot and sped away without taking responsibility, we were understandably frustrated. But, very quickly, God’s impressed on us lessons that He wanted us to learn about patience, dependence on Him, and the small value of material things. The dent became a platform for spiritual development.
The goal of my life transformation dovetails with God’s greater goal: His magnification.
God’s ultimate purpose is to glorify Himself, to show Himself as magnificent. And, as I am changed through life changes, I have the opportunity to show the all-surpassing excellence of my God who never changes.
A couple down the street recently learned that their unborn child may have Spina Bifida. It’s the kind of news that can unravel the emotions of the strongest people. But, somehow, as they waited for further test results, they resolved that they would be prepared for what God called them to. And should God decide to allow their child to struggle with such a handicap, they determined to search for God’s redeeming purpose to change their lives and the lives of others around them in a way that would not have been otherwise possible. As God bolstered their faith, family and friends were astonished, not only at the young couple, but by a God who has carried them along the way of incredible change. God’s purpose of our transformation and His exaltation are inextricably woven together.
I learned that the Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word “crisis.” One brush stroke stands for “danger” and the other for “opportunity.” Every change in life presents a potential crisis for those in the middle of it. Often, we only see the danger, the diversion, or the disappointment. But change also presents an opportunity. When life is swirling about me, I grab hold of what is sure and firm. God’s perfections never change. He is the same today as He was yesterday and will be forever. God’s precepts never change. His Word is a foundation to give me direction and hope. And God’s purposes never change. Today, God is doing the same things He’s been doing since time began: transforming people to glorify Himself. Everything else changes. But God is indelible.