By Jessica Brodie
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been asked whether I darkened my hair because I’m wearing one color, and the very next day asked if I lightened or highlighted my hair because I’m wearing another color. Yet I’d done neither. My hair simply appeared as if it had changed.
I started joking that I have chameleon hair, because it sounds kind of funny and is just the easiest way to explain it. Unlike a real chameleon, though, my hair color never actually changes—it just looks like it does because of a perspective shift.
In a sense, it reminds me of how we think of God sometimes. We start lamenting, “I can’t seem to feel or hear God like I used to.” Then we shift to, “Maybe God changed his mind about me,” or “God’s mad at me,” or even, “God doesn’t love me anymore” or “God doesn’t care.”
Usually, this happens during times of stress, despair, or wandering. Perhaps we’ve lost a loved one, or we’re going through an extreme health or financial crisis. Maybe our mental health has taken a hit, or we’re just so busy and distracted by the concerns of this world and the responsibilities on our shoulders that everything looks bleak.
Because our perspective is skewed, we imagine God has changed, too.
But one thing that never, ever changes is the Lord. Scriptures proclaim that he is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8). We know the same God who made the moon and the stars is also the same God who caused the bush to burn before Moses and the prophets to speak. He’s the same one who set in motion the birth of a tiny baby to a virgin and her carpenter-betrothed two-thousand years ago, when “Word became flesh” (John 1:14)
He’s the same God who holds us in the palm of his hands today and assures us the truth of our salvation—that when we believe that Jesus Christ is Lord, and when we repent earnestly and genuinely seek him, then we, too, can live with him forever.
Nothing about that has changed and nothing about that will ever change.
We don’t know what other changes we’re going to see in our lifetime. But if there’s one thing we can probably wager on, it’s that change will occur—everywhere except with God, that is.
Here are three times Scripture reminds us we serve an unfailing, almighty, all-powerful God who does not change:
1. Malachi 3:6, “I the Lord do not change” (NIV).
As God declared to the Israelites, he is divinely constant. His character never changes. Neither do his eternal purposes, his perfect will for all creation.
2. Isaiah 40:28, “The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom.”
God is true. He is perfect. He doesn’t fail, ever. He doesn’t tire out or lose strength. We can count on him when everything else goes haywire.
3. James 1:17, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.”
Shadows are created when an object blocks light, causing a variation or change. But God is perfect truth, perfect light. In him there is no darkness—he is all light.
Sometimes it might feel as if God has changed. Because our feelings waver or our sadness drowns out the truth, doubts set in, and we fail to see the truth or believe in or remember his promises.
Just like my hair never actually changes color—only people’s perspective does—God remains constant, faithful, and true, even when our circumstances make it hard to see him clearly.
God’s no chameleon. And God’s constancy is the anchor we can rely on when our perspective gets clouded by life’s challenges.
The next time you feel like God has changed, remember: he hasn’t moved—your perspective has. And the good news? Our perspectives can shift back.
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