A letter from Christian Life Resources came in my mail this week and it got me thinking. It reminded the reader that God never changes, and quoted James 1:17, part of which says, “who [the Father] does not change like shifting shadows.” Then it proposed that God might seem boring because he never changes. Change is good. Change is exciting. And in some regards, that is true.
Repaint the house. Throw out last year’s fashions. Learn how to use your new cell phone. (Well, that last one may not actually fall in the “good” class.) Don’t get stuck in a rut.
How about your kids? Do they think God is boring? Do they prefer change? If they say yes, ask them to change their use of their cell phone. Use it only for emergencies, GPS, and keeping in touch with Mom and Dad. In their eyes and ours as well, sometimes change is good and sometimes we’d rather not. I suggest you go back and read my blog post of September 10, 2021, for the subtle ways being used to change the minds of your children.
Let me quote directly from that Christian Life Resources letter:
You see, life for a Christian is a bit like living on a boat with an anchor firmly embedded on the ocean floor and attached to a very, very, very long rope. That rope is the freedom we enjoy in life. It allows us to drift this way and that way. Yet, when the waves get rough, and push us to the furthest point, the anchor holds us firm. . . . The problem, however, is when we try to drag the anchor. The anchor exists to hold us when all other forces try to pull us away. When tethered to the anchor we have a solid point of reference in a world of changing values.
God is that anchor. We are told in 1 Thessalonians 5:21, “But test everything. Hold on to the good.”
We do that almost reflexively with physical things in our lives. If stairs look rickety, we step on them gingerly to see if they will bear our weight. We stick a toe into the water to see if it is warm enough for us to want to swim in it. Teach your children to do that with the books they read, the friends they may want to associate with, the language they use. What do they test those with? God and his Word. And be sure they know that even though they have stretched that rope God gives them to the farthest, it will always and ever lead them back to their place of safety—their never unpredictable, never wobbly, never changing Anchor.