Issues related to leadership, change, conflict, and other topics of human orientation occupy thoughtful conversations related to life. All are important, but the focus here is on change. While small changes occur daily in our lives, they commonly do not seem to impact us until after they relate to repetition or habit. By then some of them may seem to have been present all the while. Additional changes, perhaps slow moving and inconspicuous, are taking place, while we shuffle along with partial and imperfect awareness of what is going on. We find it modern to believe in progress. Progress must mean change, but we tug at tradition, apathy, laziness, memories, fear, and convenience – perceptions which may slow down change, or even reject it. But, we cannot, even in rejection, stop the flow of life changes and circumstances. Analysts argue that change is the only constant we have. Change will happen for strong and weak reasons. It may occur simply because we become bored, and look for something new. So what will we do about it? Miss it? Resist it? Embrace it? Use it? Guide it? Fall or rise with it? At this writing, studies of the impact of the internet on persons as individuals and as social groups are showing significant changes for human beings. As expected some serve well and some poorly.
Similar to the general public, Christians argue for change, even embrace it, but also fear it. Once argument ends and activity begins for the change makers, the Christians, like other citizens, may actually resist the changes they advance. Or they commonly do nothing in the assumption the matter will dissolve or someone will carry it through in a meaningful way. This represents human nature for the individual and the group. So we need to factor this paradox of change/no change into our thinking and planning. Matters are becoming more complex than they ever were.
A reason for fear of change is that we may believe it will dilute or destroy that which should not be changed, or we do not want to be changed. The basic truths about God and mankind, and the way of God in reconciling with us must not be changed. The ways of faith, prayer, and Scripture must not be lost or amended. Christians ought to hold basics of Scripture, brooking no change for themselves in fundamentals. They want to believe what the Apostles believed after Jesus’ resurrection, and when they fulfilled their ministries. Emil Brunner, the eminent theologian stated: God himself does not change, nor does the content of the gospel, but the situation in which man has existence does change. This last, being true, means that change of circumstances may mean change in the way circumstances are managed. Change (shifting) is in nature. Wise persons know there is a changing process, and factor it in. The mystery is that one must adjust, even assist, the flow of some changes, and how far to carry one’s own responsibility in process.
Scripture notes change in both good and ill meanings. Jeremiah wrote: Has a nation ever changed its gods? His purpose was to argue that Israel, with the true God, had defected to idols, whereas pagan worshipers stayed by their faith. To Jeremiah such change was incomprehensible. (12:1) Some changes become magnificent as: Wisdom brightens a man’s face and changes its hard appearance. (Ecclesiastes 8:11) One is checked in a study of change in Scripture. The chief lesson is to choose change areas that are complementary to the unchanging, so to balance the paradoxes of life itself. The greatest change of all is found in redemption. That is the most dramatic change the Christian has faced in the course of his or her life. If we argue for that unchanging change, and we must, then we have been agents of change. Wisdom should guide. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020