“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows” (James 1:17).
Why is it so difficult to accept change, whether it is political, job‑related, or family changes? It is certain that we who object to change are changing at the same time we object to changes around us. Look in the mirror and then look at the pictures you took a few years ago. Yet, from our perception it is not we who have changed. It’s the world around us.
I was quite certain of that fact the day I stepped off an airplane to meet a former classmate of mine who had invited me to speak at his church. I looked for the slender young man with dark wavy hair whom I had known 25 years before. Most of the passengers had left when I saw a man who faintly resembled the young man I had known in school, only the man I saw was suffering from the the 3‑ B’s: bulges, balding and bifocals. Hesitantly, I said, “Are you Ed?” And he replied, “You must be Harold Sala!” We had both changed.
Accepting change is never easy. The elderly gentleman, whose eyesight has deteriorated to the place where he cannot drive, still holds onto his driver’s license and renews it every year, even though he knows in his heart he would be a danger to everyone, including himself, if he did drive. Movie stars who are beyond their prime will, on occasion, sequester themselves in apartments and not appear in public, and if they do, it is behind dark glasses and disguises, because they want to be remembered as beautiful people instead of what they are–aging individuals who are now in their 70s or 80s.
Accepting the status quo, or where we are in life, is part of maturity, and the inevitability of change can be accepted as gracefully as the coming of spring flowers after winter, or it can be as difficult as a winter blizzard or a typhoon which sweeps across the South China sea.
Instead of thinking of life as youth, middle age, and old age, my son insists that we think of it as youth, middle age, and “my, you’re looking well today!”
Our office is located in an area where there are quite large numbers of folks whom we call senior citizens, most of whom are now retired and have entered into a new season of life. It has been interesting to me to see how these folks handle the changes which are inevitable. Some focus on losses‑‑the inability to drive long distances, the fact that arthritis will no longer let them play golf or tennis or hold the knitting needles any more, the realization that they can no longer handle the vigorous activities which their young adult children enjoy‑‑and they become bitter. They fight it all the way, and others, instead of looking behind, focus on what they can do and gracefully accept the certainty of change. Those are the folks whom I admire and hope to emulate when it is necessary for me to accommodate change.
Will I accept the changes of life gracefully? I don’t know, but I am indeed certain that they will come. Whether you fight change or accommodate it gracefully depends to a large degree on your perception of what lies ahead. For the child of God, moving towards heaven only sharpens the focus on eternity, which gives the light to negotiate the changes gracefully, rather than fight them and grow bitter because they come. With no assurance of life after death, those changes become more difficult and we fight harder to maintain the status quo. Don’t think of all change as being negative – it can be positive. It can deliver you from bondage, pain or boredom. Your faith, friend, can make the difference. Think about it.
Resource reading:
Psalm 71.
