Change and Stability

Two glorious days here in Charlotte and the daffodils are blooming. I think we have some winter left, but I am enjoying the early signs of Spring. I read a piece by CS Lewis recently that I thought was apt in the midst of the changing seasons. He said God gives us both a desire for change and a desire for stability. One of His most amazing methods of satisfying both is the presence of seasons. The seasons change, and yet when they cycle back, the same attributes are present, giving us the stability we love as well. Winter changes into Spring. But when Spring arrives, we see the same beautiful flowers bloom, the same trees with the same buds unfurling into the same uniquely shaped leaves we remember. It is an elegant solution to the need for both change and stability.

The need for change and stability is present in the spiritual life as well. Through the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, we will grow and change, and be transformed. However, the source and goal of our transformation is eternal and unchanging -- God Himself. Hopefully,  I greet each new Spring as a different person, a better person, than I was last Spring. However, God, like the Spring itself, is remarkably and comfortably the same, an old friend I can rely on to flash the same brilliant blessings, and life affirming mercies, and promises as He did last year. Amazing how God engineers even the seasons to remind us of Him.

We can count on us changing as surely as we can count on the seasons changing. There is one area however in which we must not change. In God, we are to stand firm, letting nothing change our faith and complete reliance on Him... unless of course we don't yet know Him. Then, this is the one thing we must change.

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1 Corinthhians 15: 51-58
⁵¹ Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— ⁵² in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. ⁵³ For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. ⁵⁴ When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”^[h]

⁵⁵ “Where, O death, is your victory?
    Where, O death, is your sting?”^[i]

⁵⁶ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. ⁵⁷ But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

⁵⁸ Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.