Change
You can find hundreds of quotations about change. Change is inevitable. Without change there is no growth. To improve is to change. Be the change you want to see in others. There is nothing permanent except change. Many, many more.
The subject comes up because we’re all going through some pretty significant changes. Some have been devastated by loss of jobs, health, even loss of family members. And all of us have had disruptions. Our world has changed, and we didn’t have any say in it.
One of those quotes is this: “All change involves loss, even change from worse to better.” This lies at the heart of a discipline called change management, which is used to help organizations go through changes. People who manage change have to be aware that even positive changes involve loss. And loss of anything particularly close to us involves going through a process of grieving.
The famous stages of grieving are denial, anger, bargaining, depression (or sadness) and acceptance. We all go through these when we face loss and change. We go through them at different rates. In the changes we’re seeing around us, we’re seeing all of these, right? There was a lot of denial early on, and there are still folks who are denying that life is going to be any different. Right now there’s quite a bit of anger, and we’re seeing a lot of bargaining too, some of it accompanied by threats. It may be helpful for us to remind ourselves that behavior we’re witnessing is driven by grief.
And remind ourselves that not one of us is immune. We’ve had changes, some perhaps for the better, many for the worse. And whether we can put it into words or not, we are grieving the losses. Like every aspect of our lives, we need a spiritual perspective on it.
A few principles occur to me. You may think of others—please send them!
Denial in the Bible isn’t ever spoken of positively. Think about Peter at the high priest’s house. In the face of stress, fear, change, the kneejerk reaction is to deny involvement, deny any impact, deny our role. The spiritual man or woman will certainly feel the kneejerk, but they will realize that our God, the very definition of truth, requires us to face the truth and act accordingly. We want to deny, and maybe for a brief time we do. What enables us to set that reaction aside is the confidence we have – there is a God, He is in control, He loves me, He is going to take care of me. I don’t need to close my eyes and ears and say “La la la I can’t hear you!”
We have clear teaching about anger. “Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger.” (Ephesians 4:26, quoted from Psalm 4:4) What does this mean? I believe it is acknowledgement that anger reactions will arise within us. It will happen that we get angry—but acting (including speaking) in anger is not acceptable. We have all kinds of sinful desires that arise within us and tempt us, but the temptation is not the sin. Paul and David say, “Don’t act on your anger. And don’t hold onto it—by the time you go to bed you should have let it go.” Yes, changes imposed on us, that we had no voice in, may make us angry. The spiritual woman or man will not lash out, and will not harbor smoldering anger. They will move past it.
Bargaining isn’t something we can do with God. We can’t make our obedience or our faith contingent on God doing something for us. We may find that there are job or family circumstances that actually require us to make new or changed agreements with others in our lives. If so, we need to be the Christian in the room. Emotions can get pretty high. We need to be the representatives of the Lord Jesus Christ, as we navigate to a new arrangement.
Depression is a topic way too big for this short reflection, at least in a clinical sense. Some change managers and grief counselors use the word sadness. Which doesn’t seem strong enough, but doesn’t get confused with true depression. The fact is, losses bring us down, make us sad and beyond sad. Almost certainly every one of us has losses in the current circumstances, some of us substantial losses. Many attempts to comfort fall flat. They seem trite or even wrong. I have no simple solution to the sadness, which may be devastating. All I can say is what you know already: God is, He loves, He cares, He has something wonderful in store. Scripture is filled with people who went through something devastating, and emerged from it because of their faith. Think about Rahab, for example, and what she lost—and knew she was going to lose before it happened. Surely she wept for the loss of her home, her friends, her culture and way of life. But her faith not only brought her through, she ended up adopted in as one of God’s people, with a hope and a future unimaginable previously.
Acceptance is sometimes confused with resignation. They aren’t the same. For small things, just becoming resigned to the change may be good enough. Acceptance means actually embracing the change, the new situation. It doesn’t necessarily mean we grow to like it. What it means is that we grieve, and then we face the new circumstances. The spiritual person will always lament the state of this world—whether the same old things or new things. But it isn’t the surrounding circumstances that determine how we face them. That’s our choice. Paul says, “I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance, and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:12-13) This isn’t a trite expression. It’s not minimizing the real pain and suffering we may undergo—Paul certainly faced a lot of it himself. The point is, there is a frame of mind, a spiritual mind, that can maintain perspective and confidence in our God and our Savior, regardless of circumstance.
So, we will grieve (are grieving) our losses. We may be looking at big changes. Getting through the grief spiritually intact—even spiritually stronger—will require more, not less, attention to our Bibles. More, not less, encouragement from and interaction with fellow believers (even though that’s one of the hard changes!). More, not less, prayer. More, not less, putting ourselves into the shoes of the faithful who endured hardship, displacement, deprivation, mocking, and far worse. “And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.” (Hebrews 11:39-40, but reread the whole chapter thinking about change, loss, and grieving) Here we stand in the same spot, not having received yet, but confident God has provided something better than this life!
Love, through it all, Paul
If you have any feedback, please contact me at: paul.zilmer@gmail.com