Pastor-Eye-Zzed–Change

Maybe it’s just that I am getting older, but I feel like I am starting to have a hard time processing change.

To be honest, I haven’t been able to keep up for a long time now, but I am just publicly admitting it now. In fact, the first crack in my “hip-with-it” armour started sometime in the 1990s. That’s when I first became aware that I no longer knew every musical group on the charts. At the time I sloughed it off to the fact that Sheila and I had three baby boys. Who can keep up with anything when you have three kids in diapers? Then I blamed it on the fact that I lived in Prince Edward Island, a world then-dominated by country music.

Then there is the obvious, behind the times ‘tell,’ which is that I still don’t carry a cell phone with me on a regular basis. Sheila and I share one and use it mostly for emergencies and for keeping connected to the kids. I don’t want one on principle really, at least that is what I tell myself. Presently we are without one since the last phone slipped into the dishwater and thus became permanently washed up.

Now you might think: “Perfect opportunity, Grant, to get into the cell game: time to pick up a smart phone of some kind, particularly when it was your wife that destroyed the last phone, time to cash in on that guilt and get something really sweet!”

True, I could justify doing that, but the truth is that I don’t want a smart phone. Dumb phones were hard enough for me to work, why would I want something that only makes me feel dumber? Did you know that smart phones are called smart phones for that very reason: their smartness is inversely proportional to how dumb they make you feel? John, my oldest, just the other day said, “Dad, Nokia makes a phone with big buttons and no features: that would be good for you!” That was the equivalent of him saying, “Dad, maybe you need a first response pager just in case you fall over and need to call for help. You might want to start thinking about a walker while you’re at it!”

Fairly recently though, is when this things-are-changing-too-fast -feeling really started to kick in. More and more I think to myself—“This world is going to hell in a hand basket.” Now, you tell me, does anyone who is “with it” ever say “hell in a hand basket?” I think not! I have just incriminated myself.

Still, I haven’t stopped trying to keep up with things, but more and more I realize that progress isn’t always progress. New isn’t always improved. I no longer buy the lie that technology makes life easier. Technology complicates life—it doesn’t make life easier. Often I feel overwhelmed by change and I have a deep desire to simplify. Most of all, I have a general sense of malaise with the world, but that makes me hopeful.

OK, that last sentence probably proves to you that I really have lost it, but bear with me. What I mean is simply this: the worldly sales pitch has lost its lustre. The more I feel out of touch and disoriented by culture the less control I feel that I have—the less control I feel I have, the more I am actually rooted in reality because, let’s face it, the most delusional thing you can think is that you are in control of your future, your destiny, your life.

Understanding that life is out of control is the first step to sanity. The second step to sanity is focusing on the things that make sense and remain stable. And nothing makes more sense and remains more stable than the One who is the same yesterday, today and forever.

Or perhaps I could restate my recent thoughts by saying, “I am started to be less concerned with the changes around me and more concerned with the changes that need to happen within me.” I figure if I focus on what needs to change within, I will automatically be better able to cope with any other changes that come along.

“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” (Hebrews 13:8)