Have you ever thought of yourself as someone who loves change? I have… or I guess I could say I used to be that person until 2015 when change after change swept over me like tidal waves. For 10 months, it was like I was treading water in the deepest part of the ocean with nothing to hold onto except the hope that maybe, eventually, one of the tidal waves would finally push me back to shore so I was able to gain some footing.
I was disoriented, confused, and consumed with a question that I could not shake: “God, these are the moments and the changes that I PRAYED for… why oh why am I consumed with dread?”I felt like a hypocrite! I was a woman who had trusted God and had prayed boldly for things I deeply desired yet when I actually experienced them, I wanted to push them away. I wished for my old life back that was predictable and comfortable. I had become complacent.
It all started when I went on a summer project to Montana last June where I had prayed for God to reveal himself to me in my brokenness and he revealed a lifetime of pride and arrogance that wrecked me. I prayed for the Lord to prepare my heart for marriage and to be a wife after battling years of doubt towards the goodness and holiness that marriage can offer, and finally, after 5 years of dating, I became engaged in September. I wanted my dreams for those months to match my reality but I wished it wasn’t as hard as it had become.
And those are only two examples. I have experienced a handful of changing moments that I just couldn’t handle…I moved out of an apartment with 5 of my closest friends and I moved in with my dad, I became engaged, I became fully aware of my own sin for the first time in my life, I started an internship, my mom became really sick, my best friends graduated college and moved away and now, I am preparing to graduate college in less than a month and get married in less than two months. Change after change and all of them seemed like tidal waves. Yet, in all of these changes that have happened and will continue to happen, I am thankful for a God who is consistent. It’s in these months of change that I have been fully consumed, not with questions, but with discovering more about God and his consistency in the midst of my clattering commotion.
I think, in the midst of change, I have a tendency to become angry at God. What a twisted mentality! Even though some of the changes are ones that I had hoped and prayed about for years, I still don’t want to accept them because they are harder to deal with than the expectation I had in my head.The truth is… change is coming and it’s okay.Change is coming and it could be great but it could be really hard and it’s okay if it is. We are even guaranteed that it will be hard. It is because of God’s faithfulness and consistency that I am able to endure trial, tribulation, and endless change because His promise for deliverance is so much sweeter than anything else,
“That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:10).
We are told to persevere in our faith! “Remember those earlier days after you had received the light, when you endured a great conflict full of suffering. You suffered along with those in prison and joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property, because you knew that you yourselves had better and lasting possessions.” (Hebrews 10:32,34). Property, as it talks about it, doesn’t have to mean the physical land that we live on but anything that we think is OURS. Our job, our significant other, our car, our plans, our schedule, etc… We must joyfully accept the confiscation of our plans because we know that the Lord has better lasting possessions for us, even when we don’t like or want to accept the change that comes along with that. So next time when a change is coming or is in the midst of happening, will you remember that the Lord is consistent and faithful and his promises are sweeter?
“So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive, what he has promised. For, ‘in just a little while, he who is coming will come and will not delay.’ And, ‘but my righteous one will live by faith. And I take no pleasure in the one who shrinks back.’” (Hebrews 10: 35-38)
The Lord promises that he will be back and he will remain faithful during our time on Earth for it is said that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8).
So now, as I am still in the midst of change, I am reminded of the question I couldn’t shake a few months ago but now, it’s taken a different view. “God, these are the moments for which I have PRAYED for… thank you! It has nothing to with me and everything to do with you because you have graciously responded to my questions that I have asked in trust and in hope that you would answer. You are so willing to bring me on an incredible ride of life that is filled with change but can be endured through obedience and faith.
Now, I still will not excitedly admit I look forward to change but I do know they will be the arrival of promises made by my Father. Promises to confirm and be used for his glorious purposes. Promises to lift us up and abide. Promises to prosper us in all ways.