Anchored even in the ups and downs…

This day scrambled my thoughts. Family members arrive back from a holiday not knowing if recent storms and flash floods damaged their home. Last month fires threatened many areas. This time it is floods. Where I live, the weather changes so much that making outdoor plans is tentative at best.

As I read about the areas that were hit with extreme weather, another family member called to let us know her sister’s hubby had another stroke. Life changes in a moment.

In the larger world, a big nation attacks a small country again, this time the most severe effort in this ongoing battle. To the south, leadership decisions flip and flop and who knows what will happen next. 

But then there is God who managed to make my ‘verse for the day” be truly a verse for today:
“For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed."  (Malachi 3:6)

Life is up/down, black/white, sane/crazy, normal/abnormal, but God remains the same. I did a word search in the NT for “same” and found these comforts…

Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. . . . But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. (1 Corinthians 12:4-7; 24–25)

This God who is the same can take diversity in His people and composes everyone into a body that has the same goals and works in the same power. His Holy Spirit is our sameness, even as we are gifted differently and are not the same in other ways. Only God. 

His goal is that we become like Him, transformed into the same image as we gaze upon His glory:

And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:18)

Spending time with others who love Jesus, He encourages us when we share the same ideas and same goals. These are also from the One who never changes…

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. (Hebrews 13:8)
So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. (Philippians 2:1–2)

Not only does our God remain the same, He encourages His people to be like Him in the way we related to one another. These truths are like an anchor, a shelter, a fortress even, in a world where change happens so rapidly that it makes me dizzy.

And, “You, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning, and the heavens are the work of your hands; they will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment, like a robe you will roll them up, like a garment they will be changed. But you are the same, and your years will have no end.” (Hebrews 1:10–12)

PRAY: In a day when I feel more scattered than usual, You give me a stable word for how I can think and act based on You, the One who is never scattered or fragmented by what You see in this messy place. You tell me: “Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked” (1 John 2:6) and for that, I am settled and calmed. Take my hand and keep me moving forward in knowing You are not like the world and You are definitely not the author of confusion but of peace  (1 Corinthians 14:33). Thank You for being my stability and peace.