How Good Is Change?

Well, change can be good. When you go from a state of worse to a state of better, then change seems to be something that everyone can gladly envision. Change, it seems to me, is derived from a hope for a certain outcome. When something is harmed or weak or in a state of disarray, we may have a confident expectation that it is healed, made strong, and set in order. This is our hope, and it can lead to change. But we are still left to consider, whether we like it or not, the consequences of change.

Change for the sake of change is never a worthwhile task. Sure, when something is broken, it needs to be fixed, but it must be fixed the right way. If it is changed from one state of brokenness to another state of brokenness, then nothing has been accomplished. In fact, it is likely that further harm has been done during the shift. Suppose you have a man lying on the ground with some broken ribs. He has been hurt and can barely move himself, and until more help arrives, you are the only one there to help him. While you try to comfort him in his agony, you notice that the man is laying on a hard dirt surface, and so you think he might be more comfortable over a little ways on a nice patch of grass you see. So what do you do? Do you grab him by the legs and drag him over to the grass so that he can have a slight bit more comfort as he lays there is pain? No, I think not. The process of moving him from the hard dirt to the patch of grass would cause far greater pain and discomfort for him than the comfort gained from being on the grass. It is like this with change, if done in a careless matter.

Perhaps I might say that in my time in this world, as I’ve moved about to different places, seen different things, I’ve begun to wonder why it is that people get so excited about change. When man puts his hand to change, it is something to be done carefully, not recklessly. If we have hope for something better, then there is no reason for worry. Change will come, and may even come swiftly in our lives, but it is not something we should look to without understanding what it means. Change for the sake of change is not good, and neither is changing without knowing why. It’s nothing to get excited about unless you know for certain that it’s going to work, whether you have a hand in it or not.