Kevin Reilly – Gdansk, Poland

Everything changes. Always. This is a condition common to all of creation. Everything that has roared into life at the command of God has been thrust into a journey of life-change and transformation. It never stops. Change never takes a day off and whether you’re a tree, a carrot-seed or a lump of granite, change is your one, certain life-partner. Even the very ground that our homes are built upon is in constant flux, as tectonic plates lock horns and press with gargantuan power into one-another, forcing change – Los Angeles is currently moving north at a rate of about 30-50 mm a year! I’ll grant you, it’s not breaking any land-speed records, but every year a whole city is relocating. Staggering really. But only if change is deemed to be momentary and avoidable. If change is the norm, then maybe Los Angeles’ plan for an Alaskan winter-break is less exceptional.

In one sense, change and transformation is momentary – Paul speaks about our light and momentary troubles which are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary (the trials of this life), but what is unseen is eternal (our life in the age to come) 2 Cor 4:17.

There will come a day when everything is made new and the process of transformation (deep change) and sanctification (a deep change into the likeness of Christ) is complete. Hence, change is a companion in this life, only, and in this sense it is temporary – it has a beginning and an end. And so we are, as Christians, looking to the day when Jesus returns, bringing with him a full and total transformation of all creation; aligning everything to his character and will; setting right, every injustice; filling every hungry belly; wiping every tear-smattered face and establishing a rule and kingdom that is perfect from day one, for ever! Therefore, change is temporal, but this side of Christ’s return, it is inevitable, total and utterly unavoidable.

“I’m not one for change,” he says… and it’s a nonsensical statement! I understand what is meant by this – I like to have things that are familiar to me, in my life (me too) but to define ourselves in such a fundamental way is to singularly deny the very thing that we are called to be as created beings – ever-changing! Babies become toddlers, students become graduates, brown hair goes grey and life, under the loving, wisdom of our God, presses in upon us, shepherding us mm by mm into the likeness of his Son. Transformation and change are central to the purposes of God. “I am for change,” he says; and of course, he is.

There is liberation here. Our rich, European and Western cultures have pressed us to make plans for preservation: insurance so that when things go wrong our lifestyle may continue, uninterrupted; procedures to prop up the saggy bits; creams to fill the cracks and dye to hide the grey. Protect it. Defend it. Control it in order that what is best for us (or what we think we know is best for us) might be preserved. It’s as though the blistering adventures of the Bible have somehow been reduced to a Good Housekeeping manual for Christians. Our focus has become life-preservation as opposed to life-occupation.

But what if we viewed life correctly, as a journey into change, into the new and the uncharted? An epic adventure from day one, right through to life’s closing chapter?

What if new seasons were positively embraced, rather than avoided; and our lack and inexperience, perceived as opportunities for deeper fellowship with God, with us inhabiting life-change, as opposed to enduring it?

We are supposed to live and occupy and even enjoy the full span of our lives. Not fence them in and protect them! Somehow, we have exchanged a biblical narrative of deep transformation and adventure for a life where the absence of mistakes is commendable, comforts are essential and an orderly life is virtuous. And these things become so embedded within our thinking that the brave and courageous life we have been called to, gets reduced to a series of preservation activities.

And yet, of course, life did not begin with an I don’t, I can’t narrative. Life begins with screaming and blood and pain and tears and hope and adventure and joy and dreams. Ours is a story birthed in drama and action. Indeed, the very first recorded encounter between God and a human being began like this: Adam, You may surely eat of every tree of the garden (Gen 2:16). You may, you can, you are free to… Yes, a proviso is included in this word of freedom to not do something (which if obeyed will only enhance and sustain the adventure, not limit it!) and so God’s first human-agenda is: explore, discover and enjoy; and yet, along the way the adventure-narrative gets replaced with one of preservation. A kind of Riches to Rags story is then lived out and is shared so fervently within the church that when we stumble across a life lived off-piste, it’s remarkable – Los Angeles is on the move! Who’d have thought it!!

Change is both beautiful and inevitable and sits squarely within the purposes of God for our lives. We will one day enter an age where transformation is no longer necessary. But for now, change is the footpath before us and repentance is God’s gift for the journey (Act’s 11:18), enabling us to courageously embrace and inhabit the ever-changing landscapes before us.