A brief post on change - ohhh...

When you jump for joy, beware that no one moves the ground from beneath your feet.  ~Stanislaw Lec
I put a dollar in one of those change machines.  Nothing changed.  ~George Carlin
Things alter for the worse spontaneously, if they be not altered for the better designedly.  ~Francis Bacon
If you want to truly understand something, try to change it.  ~Kurt Lewin

Things do not change; we change.  ~Henry David Thoreau

Our only security is our ability to change.  ~John Lilly 

Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are.  ~Bertold Brecht
In all honesty every generation has dealt with this change thing and the older we get the more adverse to change we get.  It is human nature. As a child change is typically good - you turn double-digit “10”, you advance in school, you get to drive, you get to date, you get to earn a paycheck, you get a new child, you get a raise, you get a new house, you get a promotion - all change, all good. As we grow older change reverses: Someone is promoted over you, your child leaves home, you have to retire, your health starts reversing, you stop driving at night, you move into an apartment or condo to downsize. But as the song says: "...the only thing that stays the same is everything changes, everything changes." The only consistency is change. Someone said: "If you're doing it right then someone is going to copy you, so you have to change...if no one is copying you, you need to change, so change.”

Someone suggested that “change” is bad and the word itself sort of became a buzzword for dangerous stuff happening. I’ve also been told that change for the sake of change is bad. I don't know about that - I have bought new ties cause I liked one when I already had plenty of good ties. I have gone to a new restaurant just for the sake of change. I like new songs sometimes when we already have over 1000 in a good hymnbook.  

God is an agent of change and we His people must be. We want to change people from the kingdom of darkness to the Kingdom of His Dear Son. We want to change to be better people than we are - it’s called repentance (true repentance necessitates change). We want to change anything if there is a better, more effective, yet right way of doing something.

As a Christian there are things that are unchangeable - God’s love, His Word. Those things won’t change regardless of how hard people try to change them. We talk about defending them and standing up for them, and I do and imagine we must, but even if we don’t, those things will not change! The rest will and to some degree must. The challenge is understand which is which and resting instead of wrestling on the rest!