We live in time of rapid and constant change. Whether we like it or not change happens, and most of the time our ability to control or manipulate change is limited at best. Some of the change we facilitate and we like, while other changes, well, not so much. The problem is that the future has a way of arriving unannounced. Whether we like it or not, we have to deal with change.
Think of big changes in your life.
Getting married. I think back to my own first year of marriage and how happy I was, and am, to be married, but there was so much more change to that decision than I could imagine. Just learning to live with someone else was a huge adjustment. I think of this because my own daughter is getting married in a few weeks and my wife and I have tried to have a few conversations with her about what lies ahead. But as my parents had ‘no idea’ what they were talking about when they talked to us in a pre-marriage, neither do we now. Marriage is a big change. I personally think of the Red Green prayer, “I’m a man, I can change, if I have too…”
Children come and bring a big change. I was an expert in child rearing because I had taken some social work courses and child development psychology. However, that expertise was short lived – I had children. I’m looking forward to the very near future when my second adult child moves out and once again, I resume my position as an expert. This time because…I survived.
Children largely don’t like change. I remember a big change for my daughter, when she was 5, was the morning that she went from being home all day to having to go to school. The stress and anxiety for her was traumatic. I remember going into her room only to find that she had wound herself tightly in her comforter, crying “don’t make me go, don’t make me go”. I remember lifting the edges of that blanket, it was like lifting a large cocoon, and I had to literally shake her out of the blanket. What if we as loving parents hadn’t forced her to face that change because it was too difficult for her. All of my re- assurances that it was going to be okay, that she’d love school, she’d meet new friends met with “I don’t want to learn, I don’t want new friends…” . She trusted me, but not that much at that moment.
You’d think with all the change that we have to face in life, we’d be experts by now, yet, so much of my former pastoral counseling days revolved around change.
Change is not new – in fact, Solomon said, “there is nothing new under the sun” – however, it very well may be new to us. The challenge with facing change is that we’ve never been here before. That’s what makes it change.
At times, change is thrust uninvited upon us. It comes in the forms of life storms. As an economic crisis, a family crisis, a health issue, a divorce, the birth of a child with exceptional needs, and eventually the ultimate and eventual change, death.
Whether good or bad change – stress and anxiety are created in any change process. There are huge elements of uncertainty and a litany of ‘what if’ scenarios can arise in our minds. It is just not possible to 1. Anticipate all the places that change can take us, and 2ndly, know what change is just around the corner. Likely if we did, we wouldn’t get out of bed in the morning.
With change comes opportunity, although perhaps hard to see now. One inescapable reality of change is “things are going to be different than they were”. Although many times we may not be able to choose what those changes are, we can control what change does to us. Change can manage us, or we find a way to manage the change.
The most successful people are those who are good at plan B.
As a Pastor I have walked through earthquake changes with people. I have seen the effects as these seismic changes completely alter the landscape of their lives. I have myself been knocked over by the shockwaves of that change for them. I wish I could say that everyone I walked beside came through these times stronger and moving forward with opportunity. Some, however I have seen find that opportunity in change however difficult it was and get their feet back on solid ground.
The parable that comes to mind is the one of the wise and foolish builder. Many of us have sung the song in Sunday School “the wiseman built…the foolish man built” and the rain comes and the foolish man house falls flat. I remember a couple of years ago preparing this passage for a sermon and was struck with a new reality and question – for me anyway. Here is the deal on that parable, - one built on sand, the other on rock, but what I had been missing in this story is that the same rain, the same storm, the same elements of change came to both. Here is the thing that shocked me – building on the rock does preclude being bi-passed by the rain and storms. Faith is not earthquake insurance. Change in the form of storms, still come. The surprise in the story for me was that when the storm passes it is possible to remain standing. Perhaps missing a few shutters and roof tiles, but the structure of your life can still be intact. Mark Twain said it best when considering facing difficult change, “By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity--another man's I mean”.
In a sense, an organization is like a person. Like a person, it faces the reality and constancy of change. Some change is anticipated, planned and wanted, some is unexpected, and other change is just because change happens. We, as an organization, have been through a lot of change over the years – in the last year. Much of the change seems to just be happening around us, we are affected by it in varying degree, some directly – other’s by observation. We may have opinions and thoughts about that change – whether it is good or not. It raises anxieties and uncertainties and like any change, it is something we many times have limited ability to control. However, we do choose how we respond. That response determines how we together manage through that change.
With change come opportunities. Many times we cannot see those opportunities while going through a valley of change, it takes some walking to get through to stand on the ridge which enables us to look both behind, and ahead to dream of ‘what could be’.
Matthew 6:24-34
25"Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor about your body, what you shall put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27And which of you by being anxious can add one cubit to his span of life? 28And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin; 29yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O men of little faith? 31Therefore do not be anxious, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32For the Gentiles seek all these things; and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well.
34"Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Let the day's own trouble be sufficient for the day.
I’ve tried to both live and give one piece of advice with change other than, trust Him; …through you may not have asked for the change never lose your integrity in the process of change– once lost, it’s very hard to find.
One thing we can all be sure of, there will be change. Although our relationship with Christ may not be earthquake insurance, it is a Blessed Assurance; He is our constant that does not change.
Anyway I was just thinking
Neil
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