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 written by Chris Barna,   June 28, 2011

Unchanging

 

 

I sometimes hear people say, "God never changes". It would irritate me when I heard those words. How can God not be changing? Just look at the world around us, it's in a constant state of change. The seasons cycle, people grow older, stars explode everything is constantly in a state of flux. But not God? I thought God must be changing as well, perhaps on a much longer time scale than us, but he changes just like everything else. Just look at the change from the Old Testament to the New. God certainly changed there, right?

 

Have you ever noticed how terribly limited humans are? The universe is a pretty big place. So big in fact, I am sure no one actually understands much about the size or the way things actually work. But we humans are clever little animals, we are full of ourselves, and we are very good at tricking ourselves and each other into thinking we are more than we are. Why, you may be wondering, have I jumped from God changing, to the poor understanding of humans? The answer, I came to an understanding about my relationship with God.

 

There is a difference between my understanding of God, or what I want God to be, and who God Truly is. As much as I want God to be this or that, God is what God is. As much as I wanted God to be changing with my understanding of him, that makes for a number of problems. The two big ones are, I am making myself God. Secondly everyone else's understanding of God differs from my own, which needless to say made me conflicted, someone must be wrong (and of course that wasn't me).

 

But I was wrong.

 

God must stay the same. Imagine for a moment you knew the beginning middle and end of creation. It is all one, and you created it. What use is there for you to change? None. Unless you are a human, with an incredibly limited, minute understanding of the universe around you. To people everything always looks like it's changing, life is always in flux when you only see a limited piece of the picture.

 

I think this may be one of the core reasons of conflict within the Christian subculture. The need to put one’s own understanding of God, above the understanding of others. Instead of a united body with many parts, we (humans) are creating many parts with no body. All the hands are going to hang out with the other hands, the eyes with the other eyes, and so on. Personally I would rather hang out with like-minded people as well, it makes me a little more at ease. But is that what God wants? Perhaps I am being too critical.

 


Philippians 1

15-17 It's true that some here preach Christ because with me out of the way, they think they'll step right into the spotlight. But the others do it with the best heart in the world. One group is motivated by pure love, knowing that I am here defending the Message, wanting to help. The others, now that I'm out of the picture, are merely greedy, hoping to get something out of it for themselves. Their motives are bad. They see me as their competition, and so the worse it goes for me, the better—they think—for them.

 

18-21 So how am I to respond? I've decided that I really don't care about their motives, whether mixed, bad, or indifferent. Every time one of them opens his mouth, Christ is proclaimed, so I just cheer them on!


And I'm going to keep that celebration going because I know how it's going to turn out.

 

In the above passage Paul was speaking to church leaders, about church leaders. His main point here is that the Philippians should consider anyone spreading the gospel as people on the same “side”, regardless of whether The Philippians agreed with how it was being done. They are all working for the same “boss” so to speak, and they are all working toward the same end.

 

God works on Gods terms not ours. I can try to twist and turn God into a convenient me shaped God, forgetting that that isn’t God, that’s me. Thankfully even though I misunderstand God, and occasionally try and twist God for my own ends, He is still able to take that and make some good come out of it. In other words He is a redeemer, he takes something of little worth and makes it valuable. I am a fickle ever-changing person, learning from my mistakes and new experiences. God is unchanging, he makes no mistakes and knows the whole story.

 

 

 

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