The season of goodbyes and change. During the last twelve months, we’ve seen our football team go from hopeful celebration to disappointment and relegation. We’ve lost people we love and welcomed babies and new worshippers into our Church family. The world has become hotter, wars have started and continued, species have been lost and saved. There seems to be more gender confusion, more blurring of the laws on sanctity of life, more shootings and stabbings. More goodbyes to say to Ministers (the hellos will come in September) as the church year and school years move on. In our church circuit, smaller churches are joining together while others that have declined in numbers are rising up with the anticipation of welcoming a youth worker.
Change – even positive change – can feel threatening. I don’t know what you are like, but although I welcome re-decoration, I hate the disruption that has to happen before it’s completed. I want things to stay the same even though in my heart I know that cant happen.
I need to remember that (Ecclesiastes 3:1) ‘Everything that happens in this world happens at the time that God chooses.’ How reassuring is that! He knows everything from beginning to end, inside and out and has the power to sort it. But what’s more, He loves …. me and you personally, individually and unconditionally. His Word says (Philippians 4:6) ‘Don’t worry about anything, but in all your prayers ask God for what you need, always asking Him with a thankful heart.’
What a privilege that is!! All we need to do is ask. We don’t need to fear change because God and His Word is unchanging. The world around us changes, our situations change, we ourselves are volatile – our bodies and health fluctuate, our relationships and moods alter but God can be depended on.
‘Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father;
There is no shadow of turning with Thee.
Thou changest not, thy compassions, they fail not;
As Thou hast been, thou forever wilt be.’
Written by Thomas O. Chisolm
Happy Summer!