Embracing Change

Christians are called to embrace change as an essential part of spiritual growth and maturity, recognizing it as a means of transformation into the likeness of Christ and a way to align with God's will and purpose. A key biblical principle guiding this perspective is understanding that God is at work even during difficult seasons. Christian optimism dictates that we focus on gratitude, pray for guidance, seek companionship and trust God’s plan for new opportunities. This is hard!

Commentator Michael Levine, reflecting on bad relationships, stressful living, and the rampant unhappiness in our culture, observes that, “We stay in hell a long time simply because we have learned the names of the streets.”

On the same topic, Dr. Bill Crawford, PhD, licensed psychologist, author of eight books, and organizational consultant, writes,

“The brain is hardwired to avoid change, this is why some people freeze or why characters stay in a room even when the murderer is coming towards them. Changing means facing the unknown, and the unknown is everyone's greatest fear. This biological predisposition, rooted in our evolutionary past, triggers a fear response from the amygdala and makes it difficult to break away from established routines and habits. We develop world perspective habits that, though they are uncomfortable–even dangerous, we will hold on to them (habits) because they are familiar, the alternative (change) is terrifying.”

In other words, how we have learned to see ourselves and the world is continuing to influence our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors in ways that may be trapping us in “hell” (experiencing anxiety, frustration, depression, a lack of self-worth etc.), and yet, because it is familiar (we know the names of the streets or how to survive), we are reluctant to change.  He goes on to say that the only way to overcome this hard-wired perspective is to “change this internal wiring.”

Good news! We have the means to rewire! We have a God who will help!

As people of faith, we are called into just that, our Faith. Faith is God’s gift to us to help us believe and trust in God. This is a divine paradox and points us to a divine gift: If God gave us the gift to recognize the giver then the giver is already present through the gift. We recognized God through the lens of God. We are made in the image of our Creator and as such have minds predisposed to avoid change. We long to have, even feel cheated if we don't have a steady, stable, predictable and dependable life. This makes sense as God told us in Malachi,

"For I am the LORD, I change not," (3:6)

and in Numbers 23:18,

“God is not a man that he should lie or change his mind, and He fulfills his promises.”
Moreover we hear in the Book of James that

"the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change". (1:17)

And in the Letter to the Hebrews, that

"Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever." (13:8)

These affirmations that God does not change explain our desire for consistency. It is ironic, therefore, that we can only achieve that stability by changing.

God calls us away from our worldly and destructive self-protectionism into the light of true stability. We are called to embrace change–good or bad–with the faith that God is acting in us through the transition.  Change can bring adventure and excitement, fresh ideas and new opportunities. Sometimes change needs to happen in order for us to stay healthy and resilient. And it seems that our most significant spiritual growth comes after change.

Try as we will, we can’t stave off change. Growing older, getting sick, getting married, having children, dying–change is perhaps the one thing that does not change. Embracing the change that comes means embracing all the more the presence of the Holy Spirit and the companionship of Jesus. Picture this: Jesus did not want the change that was coming, but he embraced the Cross of Calvary, faithfully anticipating the Father's plan and the good that would come from it.

Accepting change by faith initiates its redemptive work. In the words of Paul to the Romans, “now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life” (6:22). Change is at the heart of sanctification, it’s the purpose of God’s Word, and it’s the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

Eddie Espinosa, a contemporary Christian musician, in his song, Change my Heart, O God, prayed,

            Change my heart oh God
            Make it ever true
            Change my heart oh God
            May I be like You

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFAVpUQgVoo

While expressing a genuine heart attitude towards God, these words also speak of our need for change through sanctification. Certainly, change in our thoughts, our beliefs, and feelings are the most difficult, yet they are also the most needed. Our internal reasoning is the arena of our greatest battles, with the greatest potential for resistance and pain. But, change we must, if we want to live like Christ!

Paul, having undergone enormous change, told the people, “be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God”  (Romans 12:2). Paul recognised the necessity of ongoing internal change as the path of testing and discovering God’s will. It's sad how often Christians set boundaries for God, unconsciously informing God of what He can and cannot change within them.

Change Flows Out Of Salvation

Salvation is the spiritual metamorphosis that enters us into a life where “we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18 NIV). This involves no small amount of growing pain as pride, ego, selfishness and inappropriate preferences are lovingly, yet determinately, changed by the Holy Spirit.

As people of faith, we enter into the presence of God by recognizing the presence of the Holy Spirit and thereby inviting change. Paul describes this in his second Letter to the Corinthians saying, “the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised” (5:14-15).

Look at your world, your relationships and your protectionist decisions and let go. Oh, things will look the same, but you won't be. Live into the change that God is working in you and achieve true changelessness in Him.

Changing and changeless,
​
Fr. Bill+