An old, broken-down garage door…worthless, right? So we thought when Victoria (my wife) and I decided it was finally time to replace our decade’s old one. It had simply run its course – it just didn’t work anymore. But our little Willow (youngest daughter, aged 9) felt differently.

The new garage door arrived one Saturday morning with the installers when she gently tugged my excited-self aside and with forlorn face asked, “Do we really have to replace it, Daddy?” A little puzzled, I explained that yes, it was, because Mommy and Daddy could no longer get their cars in the garage. Her glassy eyes, cocked upward toward mine, slowly moved downward as she sauntered back to her room and closed the door. Whimpering could be heard from the kitchen where I stood, so I walked down the hall, softly tapped on the bedroom door and asked if I could come in.

There was no answer so, exercising my parental prerogative, I opened it anyway. Gingerly, I knelt beside her bed and nestled myself against Willow’s head which was buried in the comforter, and whispered, “What’s the matter, Sweetie?” Staccato words, between gasps of air, described vivid memories of her practicing tennis and playing dodge-ball against that old door (which may be why it broke). Alligator tears streamed down those soft and smooth brown cheeks that morning with the sound of her repeating, “It will just never be the same”. Thus it is with our tenderhearted Willow, and thus it is with almost all things in life, or so it seems. Nothing really stays the same, does it?

Predictability… consistency… familiarity… routine… tradition… most of us like it. We cherish it. We long for it. But everywhere we turn change is there, right around the corner, waiting to greet us yet again, and again and again.

Heraclitus of Ephesus, the Greek philosopher B.C., is believed to have coined the phrase, “The only thing that is constant is change.” He’s right. “… the heavens… will perish, they will all wear out like a garment, like a robe You will roll them up, like a garment they will be changed.” [Hebrews 1:10b-12a] Even so, change almost always seems hard to accept. Yes, life goes on, but it would be nice if things didn’t break, if we didn’t grow old, if loved ones never died… if things could only stay like they are or be as they once were – if garage doors never had to be replaced.

Why is this so? That we can cringe at, and even chaff with, change? On the bright side, perhaps it’s because that’s part of our original condition, in the Garden [cf. Genesis 2:8], where you could always count on life to remain life - as the known, living in perfect harmony with the Creator. Or on the not-so-bright side, perhaps it’s partly because our contentedness is grounded where it ought not to be - the here and now, the familiar, the seen, the experienced.

You know, maybe the only thing worse actually isn’t change at all, but merely the fear of it – like, what I have today I may not have tomorrow, or what I get tomorrow may not be as good as what I have today. Hmmm…

So, where does all of this change leave us? Better asked, “Where should all of this change take us?” Instead of it arresting us, why not let it be a compass that points us right back to where we belong, to where we’ve always belonged? Grounded into the bedrock of un-changeability - Jesus. “Jesus Christ”, who “is the same yesterday and today and forever.” [Hebrews 13:8] Aren’t those the sweetest words ever?

What we know of Him from yesteryear, is where we fellowship with Him today, and where our hope resides forever. Theologians refer to this as the “Doctrine of God’s Immutability”. Simply put, it’s the truth that God never changes; it’s one of His incommunicable attributes. We change, but God never does. It’s the only place where we can find security in certainty.

But certainty seems so distant when we see things slipping out of control, jobs coming and going, health waxing and waning, and sometimes every facet of our reality looking different with each passing moment. When we begin to feel these things, we must turn in a different direction and run as fast as we can to the Unchanging One. [cf. Psalm 102:27; Malachi 3:6; James 1:17]

Then… we jump right into Jesus’ arms, have Him hold us tightly, never let us go and listen to Him whisper with one hundred percent fidelity, “I have always loved you. [Ephesians 1:4c-5 ~ “In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will.] I love you. [John 16:27 ~ “… the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God.”] I will always love you. [Romans 8:38-39 ~ “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”] These things will never change.”

Listen, when the winds of the world shift our gaze from the mutable to the immutable, let us breathe deeply and rediscover in Jesus not only rest for our hearts (“Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee.” ~ Augustine), but tranquility for our souls (“Only love of the immutable can bring tranquility.” ~ Augustine).

Thomas Kruggel is a non-vocational Elder at Grace Bible Church and works in the City of San Francisco