Unchanging

I’ve been taught all my life that God is ever-present, all-powerful and never changing. He is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. While I have been taught this, I don’t truly live my life in light of this knowledge. Consider this list of things that I know about God and stay the same no matter the circumstance:

God is love.
God is good all the time.
God offers salvation to everyone.
God will forgive 7 x 77.
God can move mountains and water.
God can do what He wants, when He wants with or without me.

With this knowledge I should be living my life with confidence knowing that God is in control and has a purpose for my life; I don’t do this though. Oftentimes I let my current circumstance or strongest emotion dictate my outlook and perspective each day. My inability to live life in light of God’s unchanging nature really struck me though when I read the following excerpt from Choosing God’s Best:

“(Max) Lucado tells about the time his two-year-old daughter fell into a swimming pool and almost drowned. Fortunately, a friend saw her and pulled her to safety. ‘The next morning in my prayer time’ he says, ‘I made a special effort to record my gratitude in my journal. I told God how wonderful He was for saving her. As clearly as if God Himself were speaking, this question came to mind: Would I be less wonderful if I had let her drown? Would I be any less a good God for calling her home? Would I still be receiving your praise this morning had I not saved her?’”

Wowsers, Max is right. Is God any less powerful when something doesn’t happen like we expect it to? Is God any less generous when we can’t keep up with the Jones’? Too often I find myself living up to worldly benchmarks. My standard for evaluating how good my day was if I was in a good mood all day or if I had to do anything difficult. Wow, when I type that it sure sounds really shallow. I am a daughter of the living God, and I know without a doubt that His character is not shaped or influenced by the world. He is good, awesome and powerful regardless of the day-to-day struggles and emotions I encounter. Why then do I allow myself to only live up to my worldly potential? I am limiting my life for God because I am so short sighted that I can’t even remember that God is good all the time regardless of what happens in the present.

I ask for God’s ever present spirit to shake me up today so that the first thing I think of is how consistent and good and present He is in my life. Having a good hair day, or not getting cut off in traffic don’t influence whether God is good or not. He does influence my reaction to events like these though and I can choose to have a godly outlook or a worldly outlook. I pray the same for you—remember that the world doesn’t affect God’s attributes. He is the same good, loving, and generous God in good times and in bad. I pray that I might choose to honor God’s will in my life even when I don’t understand why or how it is being enacted in my life knowing all the time that God is unchanging in His goodness, mercy and desire to mature me.