Does God Change?

When I was nine I learned the word "immutable." It was added to my list of attributes of God: qualities that describe Him (and pretty much only Him). Immutable meant that he never changed. He stayed the same through the ages, just like the worship songs say...

But my life changed, of course. High school, college, teaching. Moving from childhood to adulthood, learning, growing, and always changing perspectives.

My relationship with Him ebbed and flowed. Reading and studying His words went from being my morning routine, to my longing and obsession, then back once more to routine, until it fell out of routine almost completely. As life has gotten busier, snippets of His Word last me until the next crazy moment. My time with Him now is completely hit or miss. An hour and a half here, five minutes there, a Psalm snack, or a Bible expedition.

And just like my relationships with people change, my relationship with God changes too. We're always either growing closer or moving farther apart. And even stagnancy is never truly staying the same...

But in understanding my relationship with Him to change, I began to assume He also changes. And I throw it back in His face: "You said you'd never change! You said you'd always stay the same!" My frustration at my changing situation is always thrown back on Him. Because in human relationships, it's always a two-way street. It's never just one person's fault. Both have a part to play in the growth or demise of a relationship. So I assume it's the same with God. And I get frustrated when I feel He isn't holding up His side of the bargain.

I hate the idea of changing truth. In fact, the seeming definition of truth would be that it doesn't or shouldn't change. Truth is truth; it's absolute, and it can't be adjusted or shifted.

Why, then, do I find that throughout different seasons of my life, God has "changed his expectations" for me? Growing up, He seemed to emphasize moderation, caution, sin, legalism, and holiness in the people He placed around me. In college it seemed like He had changed His expectations for me completely. More often than not, He seemed to emphasize FREEDOM and celebrating all the things I can do in Him. I embraced choice, free will, and grace. Endless grace. Neither of these were sinful. Or faulty perspectives. Yet they are complete opposites. It seems impossible, then, that both are valid and true.

Other times, He emphasized speaking truth. Telling people straight up what they needed to hear, no matter how awkward or uncomfortable it was for me. Confrontation. Yet on the other hand, He beat me over the head with grace. He challenged me to show grace to others. When I was so ready to judge someone with Truth, He turned the tables and filled my heart with grace.

He has taught my introverted self to love people, to surround myself with them, to pour into others, yet other times He emphasizes rest and pulling away, putting up barricades, and being willing to step away from others' struggles, pain, and hurt... which would make me feel cruel and unfeeling. He taught me that it isn't my job to transform hearts. He taught me to love deeply, yet be willing to release the ones I love at the foot of the cross.

He grew my heart for missions, for cultures, for getting out and "changing the world," prepared me, sent me, and brought me back to Warsaw, Indiana, and taught me to love the people here. Serve them here. Be present. here.

He has taught me about worship. About worship being so much more than a song sung to His name. Worship is a way of life, of service, of the heart. He taught me the importance of worshiping Him in private, then challenged me to love His Church... the people who also love Him. He taught me to worship with them.

He has led me into relationships, and led me out of them. He has broken me, and mended me. He continues to be full of paradoxes. The things He values seem opposites to me, and I don't understand how He could emphasize one thing for a time in my life, then completely turn the tables, and emphasize the other.

His pendulum keeps swinging between the tensions of two opposites, and I find myself jumping from one side to the other, never maintaining the balance. Either it's all grace and lenience with sin, or all law and no grace. It's all loving people, or selfish solitude. It's all a heart for overseas, or all a singular contentment with where I am for as long as I live. I am flawed, and I always favor one side over another, rather than maintaining the tensions He continually seems to ask of me.

But it makes sense. These paradoxes aren't truly paradoxes. They are, perhaps, for the human mind. But God is enormous. He encompasses so much more than I could ever fathom.

I think of myself as a tiny planet orbiting an enormous star. At any given moment, I see only a certain amount of who He is. I see only a little of what He expects. As I continue my orbit, I begin to discover new sides to Him... sides that I have never had the opportunity to know because I have never been in that exact place of my "orbit." They've always been there... just waiting for discovery. And as I continue my orbit, places I knew well are now in shadow; new places are illumined. God does not change. He is constant. Immutable. It's me and my inconstancy, my ever-orbiting that is doing all the changing. I'm just seeing new sides to this enormous God.