You are the great and awesome God, who keeps his promises and lovingkindness toward his people. You are right and just and holy, good and kind and gracious.  

In all these ways, you are unchanging, the alpha and the omega, the same yesterday, today, and forever. 

You are perfect in all your thoughts, in all your ways, and in all your words. 

But we change… we know that while changes aren’t permanent, we know that change is. Change marks our lives and is one way that we are different from you. 

We grow up, mature, become independent from our parents, often seeking to know who we are and why we are. And so we change. 

We marry, joining with another person who is always changing. And we grow together, becoming one new and different person. 

We have children, which brings even more change. You give us a new life, a boy or a girl made in your image, that we are to care for and raise up. And through that we change. 

And we age. Our eyes fail, our ears fail, we lose the ability to do the things we used to do. We can’t work as hard as we used to work, can’t think as clearly as we used to think. 

Illness and disease bring change that threaten our lives and remove almost all of our independence. Or they take the lives of those close to us, whether spouse or parent or friend, and we are changed again. 

All of that change can toss us about to and fro and carry us away – and yet we are often tempted to put our hope in this life, that we would find an ultimate satisfaction in this life that is always changing. 

But we do not need to rest our hope, find our satisfaction finally in this life because you have made yourself known to us. And because you have made yourself known to us through the prophets, through the apostles, through your son, we can find hope in you in this changing life. 

Through your word, we can know that we are sinners, yet you offer forgiveness, complete and whole, to those who believe you. 

Through your spirit in us, we can know that you have begun to change us into Christ’s image and that his work, your work, will not cease until all things come together in Christ. 

Through your son, we can know that you will never lose us. Even though we change, we can rest in the knowledge that Jesus will never lose those you have given him and he will raise us up at the last day.  

Through your promises, we can know that you will send Christ again to restore all things as you intended, so we can eagerly await his return with true confidence and true hope. 

Amen.