Downs challenges us today to note down a few changes that have taken place recently in our lives. Do you think that change we initiate and change initiated by others provoke different reactions in us?

My family has moved country this summer, from Asia to Europe, and because of some social desires together with some administrative and logistical necessities we’ve slept in six different places in six weeks. It goes without saying we’ve left friends and loved ones. What else has changed? School, currency, language, food, culture, etiquette, transportation: all changed. Another of my older children leaves for college this September so that will cause a change in our family dynamic.

What hasn’t changed? God. He’s just the same: protector, provider, saviour, friend. It’s easy to leave him out in the whirl of new things and change. It’s easy to forget him in our changed routine. It’s easy to struggle and muddle through all the changes and forget to call on him to protect and provide for and comfort us.

Just as I was writing this a friend made one of those verse images on the Bible app and I got sent an alert. The verse she had highlighted was from Paul’s letter to the Philippians, where he talks about being content whether hungry or being well fed. The version my friend used was The Amplified Bible which presents it like this:

“I know how to get along and live humbly [in difficult times], and I also know how to enjoy abundance and live in prosperity. In any and every circumstance I have learned the secret [of facing life], whether well-fed or going hungry, whether having an abundance or being in need. I can do all things [which He has called me to do] through Him who strengthens and empowers me [to fulfill His purpose—I am self-sufficient in Christ’s sufficiency; I am ready for anything and equal to anything through Him who infuses me with inner strength and confident peace.”

(Philippians 4:12-13 AMP)

That’s what I want to be able to say amid the change and the disruption: I am ready for anything, not because I am so self-strong but because I am infused with inner strength and confident peace through Christ. I can face change and disruption knowing that my purpose in Christ remains secure and my God is unchanging.