| God on a good day |
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My parents were consistent, but I had no appreciation for that when I was growing up. I would have labeled them boring. They just kept doing the same thing.
When the kids were older and we needed money for school, my mother worked with medical records in a doctor’s office and managed to get home and have a meal on the table at 5pm. Not at 4:45 or 5:15, but 5pm. It just was there.
I didn’t realize what a challenge it is to do that on a nightly basis because it was always there. We rarely went out to eat. When we did go out to eat, we drove to a town about 30 miles away. There were perfectly good restaurants in our town, but the food in the other one was a bargain. We always went to one restaurant where the pasta was the best, and my parents always ordered the same thing. Mom would stare at the menu for 15 minutes like there was a decision to be made, and then she would announce to Dad, “I think I’m going to go with . . .” We yawned.
And Dad got up at the same time every morning and went to work. He hung his sport coat in the same place on the same hook in the same car for most of those years. He didn’t switch cars, even when he got a better job. He stuck with the same one. And I don’t remember him ever missing a day of work. He never took a sick day in 36 years at one company.
My point isn’t to extol the virtues of monotony. There’s nothing wrong with variety and adventure. But the reliability of a consistent character is comforting. You always know what you’re going to get. And with God, that means His goodness one day translates into goodness every day. He is who He is consistently.
Now if you look in your concordance you won’t find the word consistent very much. You’ll find the word faithful and other phrases that involve the word change. James 1:17 says, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.”
We don’t ever have to wonder if we’re catching God on a good day. You’ll never hear Him say, “Man, I would have loved to have heard that prayer, but with everything that’s going on in the world, I just didn’t have the time or patience for you. Compared to that, your wimpy problem just sounds like whining today. I’m on My last nerve and you’re currently standing on it. Sorry.” No. “I the Lord do not change,” says Malachi 3:6.
In a family, the kind of consistency my parents exhibited can relieve a lot of stress. When a family’s life is filled with some reliable constants, it creates a secure environment and models important messages about dependability and faithfulness. That’s especially true when the parents’ character is among those constants.
The same is true in God’s family. We children feel awfully insecure sometimes, but that isn’t because God keeps changing His ways; it’s because we keep forgetting how consistent He is. Though we can’t predict God’s behavior, we can rest in the fact that His character has never changed, and it never will. The rules He prescribed for our own good apply across time. The promises He gave one day are good today. The heart that poured out blessings on us in the past will pour out His blessings in the future. His works may surprise us; His personality won’t. Remember that when you need someone to count on.
This message is from Phil Tuttle.
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