Coping with change: Part 1 - Hope 103.2

Coping with change: Part 1

Morning Devotions is for those curious about the Christian faith and who want to explore Christian issues that relate to their daily life.

By Chris WittsMonday 10 Feb 2014Morning Devotions with Chris WittsCultureReading Time: 0 minutes

Transcript:

Did you know there are now over 2000 classified fears in the medical encyclopaedia. Many of them are well known but some you’ve probably never heard of. For instance: butterphobia – the fear of peanut butter sticking to the top of your mouth. That is a legitimate fear for some people. Or,Photophobia – the fear that you don’t ever look good in pictures. That ones for me ..

Some fears we’re very familiar with and some are more obscure. For instance,we all know about agoraphobia – which is the fear of open places. Today and tomorrow,I want to talk with you about another fear – it’s a big one – the fear of change. There are some changes that we love. But when we lose a loved one,or get fired from a job,or experience some changes in other areas of our lives,we’re not very happy ..  There are so many changes that come into our lives that we don’t like. We resent them,we resist them,and we run from them. How do you deal with the fear of change? It’s a topic we need to talk about from time to time because it affects each of us in some way.

1. Everything is moving faster.
The pace of life is speeding up. Progress,in general,always causes things to go faster. But we don’t always keep up ..

That reminds me of a man who was out in his front yard mowing his grass when he saw his neighbour come out of the house and head straight to the mailbox. He opened it,then slammed it shut,and stormed back into the house. A little later he came back out of the house and again went to the mailbox,opened it,and slammed it shut again. A couple minutes later,he came out again,marched to the mailbox,opened it,and slammed it harder than ever. The neighbour was puzzled,so he went over to the man and said,”Is there something wrong?” To which he replied,”There certainly is. My stupid computer keeps saying,”You’ve got mail!” Things are changing,aren’t they?

I read this week that King George of England wrote in his diary on July 4,1776,”Nothing much happened today,” because it took weeks for him to discover that the colonies were in rebellion and there was a full fledged American revolution going on. Today,King George would hear it instantly on TV news and be flooded by emails. And everybody else would be aware of it,too. Things are moving faster.
Everything is moving faster. And I feel sorry for the elderly in our community who are confused ..

2. Every decision is getting complicated.
Even simple decisions are very complicated in our lives. There are a couple of reasons for this. One is that technology has connected everything. The world has gotten smaller. Things that happen on the other side of the world affect my life today.
But more than that,the real reason life has become complicated,is that we are being inundated with multiple choices. That’s obvious every time you go shopping .. 

3. And every value is being challenged.
We see this everywhere. Right is being called wrong. Wrong is being called right. There are people today that don’t even believe there is such a thing as right and wrong. We now live in a society where everything is plausible and nothing is certain.

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How are we supposed to live in this kind of environment? When things are getting faster and life is getting more frantic,when things are getting more complicated,and when all the values that have held families and society together are now thrown out the window,how in the world are we supposed to live?

Alvin Toffler,who wrote the best-selling book Future Shock says that when people go through rapid times of change they need what he calls,”islands of stability”. Those are things that do not change in your life.

God made human beings to be very adaptable and flexible. But,when everything is flying off the wall,coming unglued,and the hurricanes of change are blowing through our lives,we need to have something that does not change. As we face the 21st century and the new millennium,we’ve got to be able to say,”I know a lot of things are going to change around me,but I know these things for sure. I can count on this and this and this.”
Is there anything that gives our lives stability,that I can count on? Yes there is .. The Bible says that there are three things that won’t change.

1. GOD’S LOVE NEVER CHANGES.
In Malachi 3:6,God says,”I,the Lord,do not change.” There’s a theological term for that called the immutability of God. That means He’s always been the same,He is the same right now,and He will always be the same. Why does God never change? Is it that He can’t? Is it that He doesn’t want to? Is it that He’s stuck in His ways? Why does God never change?
It’s because He’s perfect. And because God is perfect,He can’t get any better – and He can’t get any worse. If you’re perfect there is no reason to change,because you are perfect. So God says,”I never change.”