Why Change Feels Hard | Part One

God is trying to do two things in the earth and in our hearts: He is trying to woo us into hopeful expectation and he is attempting to lift our gaze to the horizon so we might live for the real thing that is coming. 

-All Things New, John Eldredge

Last night I laid next to my husband in bed and let out an audible sigh.

"What's wrong?" My husband asked.

"I...I don't know...It's just..."

The tears felt like they came before the words could.

All around me things are shifting and changing, and at that moment I couldn't quite put into words why this felt so unsettling. It seemed like grief, even though so many of the changes were actually good things.

It was my husband's analogy that finally clicked.

He said, "It's like farming. You can only grow corn for 1-2 seasons before you need to rotate the crops out, or the ground loses it's ability to produce. If you don't change the crop, the land dies."

And that was it.

Change is necessary in this world because all living things are marching toward death. We live in a world of life cycles, rhythms of birth and death. Even fall, which is filled with brilliant colors, marks the turning towards death and loss. And while there is beauty in the death and the letting go, one thing is abundantly clear: our souls were not made for it.

We were not meant to experience death, loss, and yes, even change, and I believe it's this one thing that makes change seem so hard. It reveals a part of our hearts that longs for the Kingdom of God, and not the "angels on a cloud" version, but the one that comes to Earth.

Think of the description in Revelation about the new Jerusalem, and how there isn't day or night, but just the light from Christ that illuminates it all. Day and night don't even exist, even that small change is gone, and our hearts long for that day.

John Eldredge says it like this in his new book All Things New,

...the thing you are made for is the renewal of all things. God has given you a heart for His Kingdom--not the wispy vagaries of a cloudy heaven but the sharp reality of a world made new. This is one of the most important things you can know about yourself.

And doesn't it make sense?

Doesn't it tell you why change feels so hard? It's because there is a day coming where loss and death won't exist, where even the smallest changes aren't necessary, our bodies will be like new--never growing old with time; where we will not feel loss and mourning, tears simply won't exist, and where hearts are finally whole.

Our struggle with change simply reveals our heart for the Kingdom, and if we view it that way, if we view it as simply a compass towards that hope, then it is bearable---even enjoyable, because it has a purpose.

My husband's comment was right, change is necessary in a world of life cycles, of birthing and dying, but one day we'll live in a world where the latter is no longer an option.