I hate change. I know I'm not alone. It rather runs in our family for a start. New ideas take time to be adjusted to, changes are often preluded by weeks of grumpiness. We're an anxious bunch. I have a particular problem with unexpected change that I have no control over. I expect it might partly be all those times I was picked up from school and found we weren't going home but rather to grandparents, great aunts, or one particularly memorable night sleeping in the car at a service station. The slightly on edge feeling of nearly a decade of never being quite sure where I would be sleeping that night.
Anyway, take me by surprise with a significant change and chances are you will get panic and tears, however potentially good or bad it may be. It's on my mind as a poor church leader has had the misfortune to tell me twice in 18 months that I will be moving homegroups. Both for excellent and completely non-personal reasons but nevertheless resulting in profound changes in relationships and completely out of my control.
I say poor church leader because both times, most latterly today, it has resulted in hysterical tears, irrational lashing out and knee-jerk panic. The initial panic now subsided I am left with a sense of uneasiness and unsettledness that would usually not dissipate until the change is accomplished and irrevocable. Experience tells me that once the change happens I will settle down fairly quickly and almost certainly happily but until then traditionally I will fret, and cycle in and out of panic and occasional paroxysms of sobbing and explosions of anger.
So perhaps this is the time to try to put into practice some of the things I have been learning over the last few months. As my friend says, you may have learned what a spade is, and that is useful, but the key is remembering to use it when you need to dig a hole. Or something like that. She likes concrete metaphors for her theology, does that friend.
So what is it I need to remember about God that will help me deal with the barely covered over panic? With the feeling that I just got settled in this group and now I have to start all over again with people I don't know at all. With the fear that I will lose everything good about my current homegroup and that it will be replaced by everything that has been bad about any homegroup I have ever previously been in. Some may say that a dose of rationality and common sense should do the trick. The change is unlikely to live down to my worst fears. The unknown is rarely as populated by monsters as I imagine it to be. And homegroup is only a small part of my very, very busy and people-filled life. However one thing I have learned is that my emotions rarely respond in a satisfactory way to rationality.
So where do I turn? What are the foundations I have been trying to build that are going to help me now? The one that comes to mind is one I mulled and meditated over when thinking about how I use anger to try and control situations where I am afraid - God the Lord is in charge. Now is the moment to cling to the truth that my loving Father is Lord over creation, over circumstance, over the past, present and future.
There are three verses that remind me of this truth most powerfully. The first is the simple promise of Romans 8:28-29, that whatever happens, good bad or ugly, God will work it together for good for me, who he has called and chosen to be made like Jesus. In the words of the old hymn,
The second is the staggering picture of Revelation 1, where the glorious and terrifying Son of Man, before whose majesty John falls in terror "as though dead", this mighty Lord stoops to lay his hand on John's shoulder before imparting the words of comfort, "Fear not, I am the first and the last and the Living One. I died and behold I am alive for evermore, and I hold the key to death and Hades." Jesus, the dreadful and awe-ful and powerful, says to us, there is nothing you need to be afraid of if you are with me. Death? I have defeated that. I am the Living One who died came back to life. Change? I am the first and the last, I know the end from the beginning, nothing takes me by surprise. Judgement? The key to death and Hades is in my hand, nobody else's judgement matters. And small, weak and dirty as you are before my purity and shining glory, I will bend down to you, I will at once be humble and gentle and fierce and almighty, and I will touch you and speak comfort to you.
The third and final place I have learned to grasp hold of when I am afraid and to which I need to turn now is Psalm 18. This Psalm never ceases to still my fears and calm my heart. Here I see God who hears, who is angry when I am distressed and whose anger shakes the very foundations of the earth, and who comes down to rescue me from those who are too mighty for me. I can lay hold of the truths in this Psalm of the Messiah as I stand in the righteousness of God the Son, in whom the Father delights. I matter because Jesus matters and Jesus is mine and I am his. So God cares about my hurts and fears, cares so deeply that they make him angry, cares so deeply that in Jesus he has come down to rescue me from them, come down to live through change and insecurity, loss and powerlessness, come down to defeat all the things that can harm me: the world, the flesh, the devil and death itself. God who makes the mountains shake and the sea roar has delivered me because he has delighted in me. How can I doubt this Lord will keep and provide and sustain me, that this Lord is indeed enough in himself if I should lose every other help I have.
So here is my spade. I know what it is and how to use it. Let's see if I can actually dig a hole.
Anyway, take me by surprise with a significant change and chances are you will get panic and tears, however potentially good or bad it may be. It's on my mind as a poor church leader has had the misfortune to tell me twice in 18 months that I will be moving homegroups. Both for excellent and completely non-personal reasons but nevertheless resulting in profound changes in relationships and completely out of my control.
I say poor church leader because both times, most latterly today, it has resulted in hysterical tears, irrational lashing out and knee-jerk panic. The initial panic now subsided I am left with a sense of uneasiness and unsettledness that would usually not dissipate until the change is accomplished and irrevocable. Experience tells me that once the change happens I will settle down fairly quickly and almost certainly happily but until then traditionally I will fret, and cycle in and out of panic and occasional paroxysms of sobbing and explosions of anger.
So perhaps this is the time to try to put into practice some of the things I have been learning over the last few months. As my friend says, you may have learned what a spade is, and that is useful, but the key is remembering to use it when you need to dig a hole. Or something like that. She likes concrete metaphors for her theology, does that friend.
So what is it I need to remember about God that will help me deal with the barely covered over panic? With the feeling that I just got settled in this group and now I have to start all over again with people I don't know at all. With the fear that I will lose everything good about my current homegroup and that it will be replaced by everything that has been bad about any homegroup I have ever previously been in. Some may say that a dose of rationality and common sense should do the trick. The change is unlikely to live down to my worst fears. The unknown is rarely as populated by monsters as I imagine it to be. And homegroup is only a small part of my very, very busy and people-filled life. However one thing I have learned is that my emotions rarely respond in a satisfactory way to rationality.
So where do I turn? What are the foundations I have been trying to build that are going to help me now? The one that comes to mind is one I mulled and meditated over when thinking about how I use anger to try and control situations where I am afraid - God the Lord is in charge. Now is the moment to cling to the truth that my loving Father is Lord over creation, over circumstance, over the past, present and future.
There are three verses that remind me of this truth most powerfully. The first is the simple promise of Romans 8:28-29, that whatever happens, good bad or ugly, God will work it together for good for me, who he has called and chosen to be made like Jesus. In the words of the old hymn,
"I have called thee Abba Father,
I have stayed my heart on thee,
Storms may howl and clouds may gather,
All must work for good to me."
The third and final place I have learned to grasp hold of when I am afraid and to which I need to turn now is Psalm 18. This Psalm never ceases to still my fears and calm my heart. Here I see God who hears, who is angry when I am distressed and whose anger shakes the very foundations of the earth, and who comes down to rescue me from those who are too mighty for me. I can lay hold of the truths in this Psalm of the Messiah as I stand in the righteousness of God the Son, in whom the Father delights. I matter because Jesus matters and Jesus is mine and I am his. So God cares about my hurts and fears, cares so deeply that they make him angry, cares so deeply that in Jesus he has come down to rescue me from them, come down to live through change and insecurity, loss and powerlessness, come down to defeat all the things that can harm me: the world, the flesh, the devil and death itself. God who makes the mountains shake and the sea roar has delivered me because he has delighted in me. How can I doubt this Lord will keep and provide and sustain me, that this Lord is indeed enough in himself if I should lose every other help I have.
So here is my spade. I know what it is and how to use it. Let's see if I can actually dig a hole.
