Don’t Be Afraid Of Change, Embrace It Instead - by Thomas Fernandez

What we as human beings fear most is change. That change can be losing a job, a first relationship or even the friendships around us. Now losing these things is one form of change, but there are others—such as new beginnings and journeys—with unknown destinations or daily tasks.

The truth is that human beings strive for consistency. We crave it, but at the same time, we crave the unknown. It’s a bit of a catch-22. We want things to stay the same but we also want something new. We want our cake and we want to be able to eat it as well. It doesn’t work like that. When something changes, it transforms us.

As Christians, the words “transform” and “change” are almost synonymous. The one exception is that realistically “change” still has a stigma of fear attached to it because the human mind, on some level, fears the unknown of change.

Here’s the thing—while we as humans both strive for consistency and crave change, God has a better way of looking at it. He wants us to embrace all of the changes of our lives because they help us grow. He has given plenty of examples of what change can do for His people throughout His word.

Change can be adversarial and most of us associate the word change with an adverse situation such as loss of friends, family, job and income. This is why the stigma of fear is attached to the word “change” and we get scared of having things change for the worse. However, we shouldn’t fear change, as it is a part of God’s plan to grow us into who we need to be. 

Charles Stanley seems to have said it best with this quote:

“Often times God demonstrates His faithfulness in adversity by providing for us what we need to survive. He does not change our painful circumstances. He sustains us through them.” 

That’s right, change is a way for God to demonstrate his faithfulness to His people, to the promises of love and devotion He has for us.  He isn’t going to make the problem go away or have us shy away from the challenge of change, because that wouldn’t help us grow or recognize His blessings. While going through the necessary changes He has for us, He gives a way to sustain us through it.

How does He sustain us? Through family, friends who support us in our time of need, activities that keep us happy while giving us a semblance of self-belief and comfort, and our church family who is always there to support us spiritually and lift us up in our hour of need.

God never abandons us. Perhaps the saying “He gives us what we can handle” is true. He doesn’t leave us on some stranded island of adversarial change with no tools—the tools are there. It’s all of those foundational support systems that will always be there.

So now we know that change shouldn’t be feared because He will sustain us through it. Let’s talk about why it happens in the first place. As mentioned before, God wants us to change, to be different than not only this world but also our former selves. He wants us to grow stronger not only in ourselves but, more importantly, in Him. To do that we inevitably will have to change. Yesterday’s “us” is better than last week’s “us” but not as good as future “us.” The Christian lifestyle is a metaphorical walk—meaning going from one place to another or changing from one place to another.

We can’t stop it, we can only embrace it.

So, dear reader, embrace the change that God has in store for you. It may seem painful now, but His glory and His plan will always be revealed. He will sustain us because He doesn’t want to see us fail. He wouldn’t be a good Father if He did.

He wants us to embrace the change because ultimately it will make us better and bring us closer to Him. It’s always scary, and it will always be, but it’s also something that will better us—especially if we trust Him.