Change and uncertainty

 

Change and Uncertainty

I asked a friend recently how he was finding the change and uncertainty of recent days.   He replied that he doesn’t mind the uncertainty but really does not like the change.  His wife however, he said, loves change but hates the uncertainty, and as her work involves a lot of international travel she is really missing that.   Don’t you just love the incredible variety that makes up our humanity?!   This variety is seen even more at pressured times like this when we all experience what is happening in slightly different ways. 

As you reflect back on your own life you can probably see where you discovered more about yourself under difficult circumstances which are often times of growth. We hear a lot about Post traumatic stress which can be very debilitating, but there is also something called post traumatic growth.  This is when we grow through situations we would never have chosen for ourselves and which looked very negative and even threatening at the start.     Can you identify one or two moments in your life like that?  

Change is the ways things are different than they were before.  Uncertainty is what we feel about the process by which that happens.   Whether it is the change or the uncertainty (or both!) that you find difficult or challenging try to engage with it by asking yourself some of the following questions.  

·         What do I feel like today?

·         What is it I don’t like about recent changes?

·         What could I grow to like about the recent changes?

·         What is it I find difficult about things being uncertain?

·         What could I grow to embrace in this uncertainty?

·         What is the difference between having a map and following a guide?

I caught you out with that last one didn’t I?!   Jesus had a lot to say about both change and uncertainty, the essence of which is to say Trust me!   This Sunday is the last one in the Church year and it’s when we remember that Christ is King.   This does not mean that he controls everything that happens, including Covid 19.  I will say more about that on Sunday.  Our world is his but he entrusts it with its’ own organic and natural processes (including human freedom) and change and uncertainty lie at the heart of this.   In nature if something never changes that is not a good sign, it’s inert, dead!   

Obviously we can have too much change and uncertainty!!!   We need some things we can rely on, some principles we can trust.  We don’t get these however from the elusive map, aka the crystal ball, which can tell us exactly how things will be in 6 month time.   As a Christian I believe we get these primarily from God’s promise in Christ to never leave us or forsake us, from the values of the kingdom of God, and that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. How we apply that to our lives is challenging and unique to each of us, but it's certainly a way lot better than letting our circumstances call all the shots.

So…we are living with change and uncertainty, more than the usual amount for sure, but perhaps it’s just a difference of degree and not of kind.    Let’s not give our circumstances more power than they need to have, let trust and not fear have the final say.