How do you feel about change? Especially when it comes in waves? Currently, our family/ministry is in the midst of what I would describe as a both an intensely exhilarating and intimidating season of multiple transitions. I have seen several friends post online the following observations: The largest transportation provider in the US doesn’t own a single car-Uber. The new largest hotel company in the world doesn’t own a single hotel-Airbnb. A new retailer recently eclipsed Walmart as the nation’s biggest and they don’t own a single store-Amazon. Even our country is preparing to change presidents, with all that shift entails, this week. I talk a brave talk about most of the present change, but privately have been on the lookout for nuggets of wisdom that can bolster my mind and heart as a I embrace/lead out in God-ordained transitions.
Quick Conciliatory Comments: For those who are now nervous, we are not talking about spiritual compromise but growing pain changes. I often hear the verse Proverbs 24:21 used to counter all change, “My son, fear thou the LORD and the king: and meddle not with them that are given to change.” This verse and others like it do not venerate a resistance to all change; instead, they underscore the importance of never being a part of rebellion-trying to change out God’s authority for our preferred usurper. Now back to the subject at hand…
With the sheer volume of everything involved in major changes, I need “pithy”, i.e. concise and forcefully expressive, statements, to lock in upon to counter my fatigue, doubts, and even at times resistance.
Here are a few pithy thoughts that effectively cement my resolve to see through this season of flux:
- “Faced with the choice between changing one’s mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof.” ~John Kenneth Galbraith
- “Your life does not get better by chance; it gets better by change.” ~Jim Rohn
- “To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.” ~ Winston Churchill
- “Close some doors, not because of pride, incapacity, or arrogance, but simply because they no longer lead somewhere.” ~Unknown
- “You change your life by changing your heart.” ~Max Lucado
- “Any change, even for the better, is always accompanied by drawbacks and discomforts.” ~Arnold Bennett
- “When you’re finished changing, you’re finished.” ~Benjamin Franklin
- “If you don’t like change, you will like irrelevance even less.” ~General Eric Shinseki
- “Change is inevitable; growth is optional.” ~John Maxwell
- “Nothing changes if nothing changes.” ~Unknown
- “Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.” ~John F. Kennedy
- “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” ~R. Buckminster Fuller
- “Change before you have to.” ~Jack Welch
- “There is nothing wrong with change, if it is in the right direction.” ~Winston Churchill
- “He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery.” ~Harold Wilson
Here’s the key to change: it is not about the “change” (the stuff) as much as it is about the “changed” (you). As Peter Senge observes, “People don’t resist change. They resist being changed.” What I am learning is that ultimately the change of circumstances and context is all about the “same yesterday, today, and forever” Jesus transforming ME one day, one decision, one crisis, one alteration at a time. By the way, this you-need-to-change agenda is not anything novel; it has been in place since the beginning of human history!
Ro 8:29 “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.”
As ironic as seems, to dig in your belligerent heels to all change-no matter its merits-is to be “given to change” (refer back to Proverbs 24:21). How so? You are attempting to swap out Heaven’s Sovereign with a transformation agenda for a “god” who allows you to “faithfully” remain comfortable and stagnant in your preferred status quo. To resist all change is to resist all of Christ being formed in you, your home, your ministry, your future!
Do you have a pithy Bible verse or quote that has or is empowering you to see through a season of becoming changed? Please share!
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