Whatever is good and perfect comes to us from God above, who created all heaven’s lights. Unlike them, He never changes or casts shifting shadows.
(James 1:17)
Allegedly, God doesn’t change. He stays the same throughout eternity. But why does our human experience seem to contradict that? Why does it seem like God is always changing?
It seems His plan for us changes when we hear one thing from God but then circumstances turn out differently. Or we think God would act one way based on what we’ve read and learned about Him, yet He surprises us.
Does God change, or is there something else going on? Here are three reasons God seems to change all the time.
1. We only get glimpses of His personality.
My dad always makes jokes about WWJD bracelets. “What would Jesus do? How could you possibly answer that? His own disciples, who walked with Him and knew Him better than anyone else, never knew what He was going to do. He always surprised them.”
It’s not that Jesus is fickle. God’s not a cartoon Tasmanian devil whirling around, carelessly knocking things over.
We don’t get to see God’s whole personality. We can’t contain it. In Exodus 33, God told Moses that no man has been able to fully see God and live. That’s why God would only show Moses one small part of Him.
So it’s not that God changes. When He seems to change, we just finally get to see a different part of His personality we have never glimpsed before.
2. We change.
Part of the reason we see different parts of God at different times is because we change. That’s why it’s so important that God doesn’t change, so there is stability in the world.
Think of it like this. During the day, the sun seems to change positions and even change the whole look of the world around us. Shadows fall, colors change, or sometimes we don’t even see what’s ahead of us because of the darkness. The sun doesn’t change its position; the world does. That’s a picture of God.
Even when He seems absent, He is there. Even when He isn’t where we saw Him last, He hasn’t move. We’ve moved.
3. His methods change, not His person.
One of the most confusing things for people in churches, I believe, is the different ways God has worked throughout history. Could the same God really be behind the different denominations? From Baptist to Lutheran to Charismatic to Church of Christ? It sure seems like it since people have gotten saved and truly experienced an encounter with God during each of those movements.
Here’s the thing – we see those denominational movements as God himself. They aren’t God; they’re merely His methods of reaching us.
God will gladly change His methods to reach us, though He stays constant throughout. We can appreciate the movements of God, but we should never hold onto them like they’re divine. They were merely tools in the hands of a divine being, not the being Himself. God doesn’t change, but He gladly works differently in order to meet us where we are.
We can be confident that God, who began a good work in us, will carry it on until completely because He doesn’t change. He will work consistently no matter how fickle or indecisive we are. Even when He appears to move, we can be confident in his constancy.