How can I cope with so much change?
Isn’t it strange that our world has seasons? Maybe that’s not something you’ve stopped to think about before. After the (relative) sunshine and warmth of summer, leaves decide green is ‘last season’ and start to fade into browns, yellows, and reds. As if that wasn’t odd enough, they all drop off as we head closer to winter. In a few months, our trees go from lush and green to bare and brown. Then, as the dull and grey winter subsides, colour erupts again in spring, and the cycle repeats year after year, after year.
All these changes seem a bit inefficient. I’m not sure that’s how I would have created the world. Yet clearly, the seasons are teaching us something important. As the monochrome erupts with multicolour, the darkness gets dispelled by light, and death brings forth new life, we find that change is a good gift from our creator God, written into the very fabric of the world we live in.
However, as you move from one season of your life to another, I wonder how you feel about the change ahead? Perhaps you’re excited by it, ready for a new challenge. Possibly you thought you were ready for a significant change in your life, and now, as you stand on the precipice, you’re wondering how you will cope. Perhaps, like me, change petrifies you, and you’re now all too familiar with the feeling of panic washing over you. Whatever it is you’re feeling, if you are to face change well, you need to be able to answer this question: How do we walk by faith, not by feelings, through the churning waves of change? Let me offer you an answer that gives us comfort and hope, both now and for the future.
“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” – Hebrews 13:8
In John 10, Jesus announces that he is the Good Shepherd. He is the one who ensures his sheep lack nothing. He is the one who leads them beside quiet waters. He guides his sheep for his name’s sake and, along the way, protects those in harm’s way. He draws alongside those in distress and carries those whose strength is failing. If you read any of the gospels, you will see that these truths about Jesus shine brightly on every page. Yet something within us wonders whether this could still be true to the same extent.
“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” – Hebrews 13:8
The Son of Man had no place to lay his head. That’s what Matthew 13:32 says, and it’s scandalous. The creator of the earth walked its streets day by day, and yet at night, had no place to call home. All things were created through him and for him, yet the Good Shepherd’s days on earth were spent experiencing the life of his sheep. These were days filled with trials and challenges, pain and suffering, and in it all, the unchanging one experienced what it’s like to face change. Yet what help is this to us now? He has ascended to the right hand of the Father; surely he isn’t bothered by our challenges now?
“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” – Hebrews 13:8
The wonder of following an unchanging Good Shepherd is that we know his heart for us never changes. Yes, he’s not physically with us, but by his Spirit, he embraces us, calls us his own, and blesses us with a depth of peace and love which we can find nowhere else. This means that in the face of change, we can have deep comfort, knowing that we are being led through it by our Good Shepherd, who knows the feelings we’re experiencing to depths we could never imagine. In this, we can have hope, for we know that as we are led through external changes in this life, with our eyes fixed on our Good Shepherd. He is using them to bring about internal changes in us so that one day, we will stand with him in glory and behold him face to face.
“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” – Hebrews 13:8
At times in the months ahead, you might feel lost and disoriented. You might feel like your head is spinning. You might feel like everything has changed, and you’ve no place to rest securely. But amid whatever change you face, you can be reassured that you know the unchanging one. So run to him. May he be the familiar one when everything else in life feels unfamiliar. Let your panic or joy in the face of change drive you to lean on and praise the one who knows your change and perfects you through it.
As you start into this new season of your life, and the leaves turn from green to brown and yellow and red, may you be brought deep comfort and peace in the unchanging love of our Lord Jesus Christ, our Good Shepherd.
