Coping with unplanned change
This post is from a work done in preparing for a season of prayer focused on change, transition and closure. The section below is on Unplanned Change, What I call Thing 1. Thing 2 is planned changed. For context this section is from the chapter on Perspective and Plan. What you don't see here is help with Thing 2, Stewardship of your life, Ecclesiastics, time for everything and Insight from Exodus.
A mapping, doodling worksheet is linked at the bottom of this article.
Thing 1 – Unplanned
Change
The Bible is full of stories about people who went through
unplanned change. Abraham, father of the faith, was called to move to a foreign
land. Joseph was thrown into a pit and decades of unplanned events followed.
Moses lived a life carried along by unplanned events. Saul became Paul in the
New Testament through unforeseen events, and Peter had an unplanned encounter
with God that involved a trance and the opportunity for the Gentiles to enter
into the faith.
Thing 1 events seem to be much harder for most of us because
we become aware of how little control we have in life. Most of us live in a
world that has the mindset that self can determine destiny. Although current
events challenge that mindset, events like terrorism, un-just imprisonment,
forced slavery, and bigotry, we still tend to believe that a person can control
their destiny.
For the Christian, the issue of fulfilling our destiny is
not a control issue. The Christian has a God who redeems, saves, restores, and
renews, thus making it possible through His might to fulfill our calling in
life. When it comes to dealing with Thing 1 events, the Christian has a
different perspective and method for coping and closure.
5 Elements of Thing 1 Change
An element is an essential aspect or characteristic of the
complete project. If the project we are seeking to complete is an unplanned
event, then the elements are resources, reflection, focus, illumination, and
advance. Each one of these elements deals with unplanned change. Often we
utilize these elements without notice, we simply do them as a part of our
everyday life. At other times, the change is distracting us to the point where we
are required to focus, to be intentional about dealing with change. Let’s start
by looking at resources.
Resources
At any moment in life, we have resources to deal with changes
that comes. The list below is not complete, but serves as a tool to help
identify your resources. Once you know what you have available to you, your
vision can transition from isolation, hopelessness, confusion or despair to a
more healthy and whole perspective. Here is my list of ten foundational
resources.
1. God
2. Family
3. Friends
4. Character
5. Soul (mind, emotions, will)
6. Time
7. Talents
8. Calling
9. Education (formal and informal)
10. Resources (home, land, livestock, money)
These resources represent assets we can draw on for help. We
can utilize these resources to help us deal with change. But resources
themselves can come under attack. Family can provide insight and balance but they
can also be attacked through divorce or death. Character can assist through
patience and long suffering but be attacked through greed. Time can be utilized
for healing or turned against us by adding pressure to make decisions.
When you take the time and identify what resources you have
and what is being attacked, you can then do a better job of reflection. One
reason why Thing 1, unplanned change, has such an impact on our lives is that
we have no plan created to deal with it. The suddenness of a change tends to
blind us of the resources we do have. Emotions can overwhelm reason and our
character can break as we feel like victims. As soon as you can, take some time
to regroup. Make yourself aware of the resources you have and count each one as
a blessing.
Reflection
Reflection is serious thought. Reflection is also letting
light bounce off an object. Christians want to reflect by having the light of
God come to them, impact them and they bounce off them, illuminating the world.
The result of Christian reflection is greater illumination for yourself and
others. Since God is a resource for you, don’t waste Him. Don’t sit in the dark
and try to figure things out on your own. Ask, seek, knock and inquire of the
Lord what to do, and how to do it. Here is a list of questions I use in
reflecting about unplanned events.
1. What is happening?
2. What is not happening?
3. Is this long term or short?
4. What have I lost?
5. What have I gained?
6. Why did this happen?
7. Who is God for me NOW?
8. Is God leading?
9. How is this a part of my Christ like transformation?
10. Should I keep reflecting upon this or rest for a while?
In considering these questions, and others you may think of,
try to keep a big picture world view. Often life is full of change, of which we
are a part, but not the main player. In our haste to deal with Thing 1 events,
we place our life in the middle, taking it all personally. Often stepping back
and looking at things from God’s perspective, or even from multiple angles, allows
us to grasp better what is actually occurring.
However, reflection is not for solutions, but for
absorption. Reflection is a time when you allow the light to shine on you. As
clarity comes, you will put off some illumination- but first things first.
Reflection often involves the removal of hindering elements. Bad attitudes, out
of place emotions and negative habits may be blocking the light. Dealing with
the removal of hindrances brings us to our next element, focus.
Focus
Focus is the ability to see clearly. Focus also deals with
centering. We call the center of a storm or earthquake its focal point. When
your life has unplanned change, it tends to throw us off focus, and off both our
ability to see and our ability to be centered. When we add focus to reflection,
we start to perceive what we might need to move or remove.
All Thing 1 change requires action. A car accident the day
before we planned on driving across the country to go to the family
Thanksgiving celebration requires we do something. Change often requires that
we deal with external things, things outside us. Managing all the stuff in
change is difficult enough. Managing the stuff can also distract us from
dealing with some internal things. Those internal things, while hidden from
view, are vital for joy, happiness and healthy relationships. Often God allows
external change to come so that we develop in our inner man. God is seeking to adjust
our focus.
Here is my short list of inner man issue that you may need
to focus on. Arranging, re-arranging, removing or expanding one or all of these
aspects may be God’s original intent in allowing Thing 1 to come.
1. Fear
2. Control (the need to)
3. Faith
4. Love
5. Hope
6. Growth, maturity
7. Discipleship (teachable, willing to follow)
8. Giving, generosity
9. Worship, affection
10. Prayer, communication
When I am working my way through the car accident that
hinders my travel plans for Thanksgiving I may also be dealing with a number of
internal things. Focus might help me to see that I fear not pleasing others. If
I miss this celebration people are going to be mad at me. If that is the case,
added to my need for a car are the pressures to keep others happy, face my own
need to be seen as loving to others, deal with my fear of no meeting everyone’s
needs. A sad but simple car accident can turn into a major event, causing
stress, worry, anger and a host of issues triggered by an accident. While the
car repairs and obtaining of a rental may take only a few hours, my soul spends
days and weeks dealing with issues the unplanned change triggered-things which
God is often seeking to expose, heal and mature. I may find myself in need of
some illumination.
Illumination
God intends our Thing 1 events to lead us to a place of
learning. Christians have a world view that life is not just about what
happens. Life is more than the events of life. Life is about union with God and
discovering the fullness of life He provides. In both Christian and
non-Christian teachings on how to deal with change and transition, people
encourage you to keep on learning from the experience. We somehow know that
wisdom gained can make a negative experience acceptable. Christians are invited
even deeper into the reality of learning. As Jesus works in our lives, we are
not only being educated but transformed, made into a new kind of being. We are
not just learning how to live but how to be a new kind of person.
I want to use “illumination” as a word that describes what
happens when the life of God is in us. Reflection allows the light to bounce
off us. Illumination is having a light within us. The moon reflects; the sun
illuminates.
Thing 1 events are unplanned interruptions that can actually
assist us in our ability to have a light within us. Thing 1 events remove our
ability to prepare, and expose our base nature. We are prone to react and not
just act, exposing who we truly are. God knows who we truly are, so these
events are for our good, our personal insight into our nature. Once exposed, we
can make choices to change or not. Often unplanned change exposes things that
need to be healed, restored or released.
In the car accident illustration, maybe this event exposed
the fact that I have un-forgiveness toward my dad. I have never been able to
make him happy. Now, because of this accident, I’m going to disappoint him one
more time and in turn face his rejection and judgement. But this may be a
moment for illumination -- a time when I see the un-forgiveness in my own heart
and have faith and courage to release my dad from my own judgments.
Illumination can happen in many ways.
A few of the forms illumination takes are listed below. This
is my short list and it represents the way God works in us. We are all
different and have different learning styles, the Lord knows this. God tends to
teach us in extremes. He tends to use the method that is best of us, the method
we learn the easiest by. And God uses the opposite of that, the method that is
hardest for us to learn from, the method which irritates us and displeases us.
You may be a person who likes to know what they are doing
before they do it. You feel at your best when you have prepared and planned. So
God leads and illuminates you through thoughtful exercises, lessons and
training. Then, one day before holiday traveling you have a car accident and
you have to make decisions on car rental, insurance, trip planning, driving a
new car, and all with no preparation and research. God threw you under the bus
as a part of your developing illumination. God has a new light to put in you, a
revelation only learned in the extreme.
Five broad categories
or forms of illumination are
1. Adapt – deal with a situation now
2. New daily life – dealing with a change in your daily life, short or long term
3. Joy, rejoice, give thanks – the increase or addition of joy in your life
4. Skill and ability – the development of new skills both internal and external
5. Revelation, vision and perception – the ability to see what you cannot see
God uses these forms to build within us an eternal light. The
development of the form works in us character or a characteristic of God. Through
unplanned change an opportunity for growth and illumination has occurred that
can result in help and hope for the individual and others. Others is the focus
of the final step, advancing.
Advance
At the end of your Thing 1 event, you are going to have the
opportunity to stay where you are or advance. If you stay where you are, you
are going to journey backwards through the process just described casting off
whatever God has put on you. You will transition from this event having a
purpose to this event being purposeless for your life. I wish that I could tell
you that once you make it to this stage you will not go back, but that is not
true. Even years after working through unplanned change, you can retreat by
retracing what good has happened and casting it off.
Devaluing your life and what has happened to you is a tool
Satan uses during deep crisis. Often, when pain and change has occurred in
multiples, we face the added burden of endeavoring to see our life from an
eternal perspective. To advance and keep advancing, you are going to face this
battle all your life. We wrestle with powers and principalities that desire to
steal our lives, and try to destroy all that God has made you to be. It is the
agenda of Satan to get you to walk off the field of life defeated and rejected.
But God desires you to live. Life in God is the ability to
live on the earth. Life in God is also the ability to carry the Lord, to host
the indwelling Holy Spirit that illuminates the world through you. Advancing is
not wasting your trials and pain but using them for good. You paid a price to
mature both in spirit and character, don’t waste that education; it was costly.
The way out of unplanned change is to walk out-- with God.
When you leave this valley, you leave a better you. It is not just about that season
of your life being over for much more has occurred than just the end or unforeseen
and unplanned events. You have changed. You have become different.
Sure we might have some scars, some age, some pain, some lingering hardship; but the eternal you is advancing and illuminating. You didn’t go through the process just for you, did you? You went through the process for life eternal, joy unlimited, love for others, and hope for all mankind. Big stuff, stuff so big that in the daily struggles of life we are unaware of what is happening-- like the earth spinning through space amidst a thousand other planets and stars of which we are mostly unaware because we can see only the bill on the table, the flat tire on the car, or the thought that someone might possible be mad at us. Look for the big so that the small can be seen as small.
Here is a passage for all
Thing 1 overcomers.
So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. (2Co 4:16-18)
Now that we have offered some help with Thing 1 it is time
to move onto Thing 2. Planned change is different than unplanned. While many of
the tools and perspectives of Thing 1 are to be applied to brother 2, there are
a few additional elements.
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