Sunrise sunset

by Josh Hughes

I’m a pretty sentimental guy, particularly when it comes to my children. It doesn’t take much - a modicum of progress in math skills, an athletic achievement, small glimpse of personal or spiritual growth, a flash of a repentant heart - for it “to get a little dusty” at Hughes manor. The small sign of growth in their lives and all of a sudden I’m Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof singing “Sunrise, Sunset”* as Katie rolls her eyes at me.

I have two seven year olds and two five year olds, so there is a lot of change to navigate. They are engaging with the world in new ways, growing in self-awareness, and learning about their place in Jesus’ story day by day. They are changing, the world is changing, life is changing. And in the midst of all that change, I’ve found myself encouraged by the certainty Scripture gives me that God doesn’t change.

Theologians call it the “doctrine of immutability;” God is unchanging and unchangeable. Malachi 3:6 says, “For I the Lord do not change.” Hebrews 13:8 says “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.”

Have you meditated on how comforting that is recently? Though cultural moods change, children change, nations change, and I change, Jesus never does. He is as full of love today as he was two thousand years ago when he went to the cross to demonstrate that love. And he will be the same tomorrow.

As usual, I can’t put it better than Charles Spurgeon did:

“Remember God is the same, whatever is removed. Your friends may be disaffected, your ministers may be taken away, every thing may change, but God does not. Your brethren may change and cast out your name as vile: but God will love you still. Let your station in life change, and your property be gone; let your whole life be shaken, and you become weak and sickly; let everything flee away—there is one place where change cannot put his finger; there is one name on which mutability can never be written; there is one heart which never can alter; that heart is God's—that name Love.”

Take heart, friends, as you take hold of your unchanging Christ today and each day.

Love you, praying for you,
Pastor Josh

*For the uninitiated/non-former theater kids, Tevye and Golde sing this song in Fiddler on the Roof when their eldest daughter gets married. You know what? Just watch: