Change is…

Pastor Matthew Best
5 min readFeb 1

Change is one of those topics that is so very interesting. It’s something that we’re told that lots of people don’t like. I think that’s a load of rubbish. I think that’s a cover for something else entirely. It’s not people don’t like change. It’s that people don’t like to not have control over the change that is happening, or not have a say over the change that is happening, or have a sense of power over what is changing. That’s what they don’t like. Someone else described it as change as a loss of something. And people mourn that loss and that’s what they don’t like. I think that’s pretty accurate too. Change itself though is not usually the issue by itself. Because change is about as natural and normal as it gets.

Humans and change are an interesting mixture. Humans might be the only creatures on the planet that willfully resist a natural process of life, making us counter to nature and how it functions. We become nature’s opponents in a way, fighting against nature when we resist change and insist on the status quo.

We not only think that we can put ourselves in the place of nature, or put nature in it’s place, by insisting that things be done our way, but we are bold enough to think we can become nature’s God as well in shaping nature to our expectations, desires, wants, and needs — all while thinking that there won’t be any ramifications for such thinking and actions. That’s pretty bold. And we’ll lay blame on “change” while actually meaning something else that resides within ourselves.

Change is so very natural. It’s something that we experience at every moment of our lives, yet we don’t even realize it most of the time. We think it’s something out there, something unique. We think it’s something apart from us, rather than a part of us.

We experience it in the four seasons. We experience it in how it rottens it food if we don’t consume it quick enough. Change happens in the course of our day even — of how the day progresses with light overtaking darkness and then the reverse occurring. All without our control. Change happens with how the temperature warms and cools throughout the day. Change happens to our stomaches as they go from empty to full to empty again. Our bodies operate on systems of change in order to survive and thrive — oxygen, blood, food and digestion, just to name three vital systems. Yet we seem to think that this mythical state of no change exists in the universe somewhere and that we can obtain it and hold onto it. As if we have ever experienced it when we have never…

Pastor Matthew Best

My name is Matthew Best. I’m an ELCA (Lutheran) pastor who attempts to translate church and churchy stuff into everyday language.