Where do we turn when faced with change?

If you’ve ever seen the film Groundhog Day or The Truman Show I’m sure you’ve resonated with the protagonist’s crisis.

Bill Murray and Jim Carey both respectively play and live out their own existential crises, asking: "Is this it?"

That sense of life feeling stuck in a rut, of everything feeling mundane and cyclical, all sense of familiar routine and habit slipped now into the domain of tedium and despair. "The same old." "Day in, day out."

We know that feeling. We find ourselves saying the same thing: "Is there more to life than this? Am I going to be stuck in an endless rut?"

Our attempt to fix the problem

So often, to break the cycle, to get out of the pit, we feel that pressure to reinvent the wheel, to define and dictate our own rules to play this life game, to shake things up and try new things.

There is a shared cultural assumption that change means difference of situation, change of circumstance. We crave house moves, extensions, job changes, relationship changes, holidays – that sense of moving on, away from anything that is this mundanity, this "normality," this rut and pit. So we move on, move away from anything resembling "the same."

And yet, the sense remains. The questions linger: "Is this it? I still feel stuck."

I want to suggest an answer – time and again we crave a change in ourselves but look outward to change what’s inside. And we’ve got it partially right. That innate sense that if I look for something outside myself, it will change how I feel inside... I want to suggest that's God-given.

God has set eternity in the human heart

God has set in every human heart that longing and desire to change - that sense of dissatisfaction and restlessness with how we are.

We are supposed to feel uncomfortable about ourselves and our lives because God desires true, and real, change.

He desires deep transformation of our very selves, souls and hearts. He desires change of our lives and how we are living them. He did not create us for mundanity but for creativity. He has no interest in the hearts of His children being stuck in pits of despair, but His longing is for clarity of thought and perception of the reality of the joys and sorrows of life. Real life, real change.

His desire is for us to experience this deep joy of living... Of living life to the full.

Through the routines and the changes, He wants us to see heavenly realities and His purpose through the seemingly innate and mundane. He wants us to have a deep sense of purpose, of self, of others and the world through seemingly menial and everyday tasks.

His desire is for change – internal, true, heart-change. While the circumstances may remain the same, our perspective of them can radically alter and transform.

Jesus is the answer

So, the solution is always outside us, in the face of Jesus Christ.

Change comes by a power not our own, but always by the Holy Spirit – the very Spirit of Christ.

This time of year often releases a desire for change; September means back to school –new routines, new goals.

But our evangelical faith is one that preaches change that comes not from circumstance, but from Christ alone. Our evangelical faith is one that remains and holds fast to the old, faithful story that never changes – the gospel.

Our evangelical faith is one of simplicity and exclusivity, reliant, rooted, centred and culminated in Christ alone. It is one that never changes, but safeguards us through life’s transient and stormy waves. We serve a God who holds us fast and keeps us steady and close to Christ when the world is blown away and swept along by the latest fads and winds of its teaching and promises.

Our evangelical faith calls us to work passionately, to pursue the cause of Christ, to relentlessly seek the will of our heavenly Father while God's Word counsels us to remain, abide, and rest in Him.

Our evangelical faith is one of life, hope and promise amidst the groundhog days. One of freedom and life that battles against our feelings of being trapped and caught in a Truman-show-like world. One that is ours completely and yet all from the Lord.

So rest this September season in the consistency of the faith gifted to us by our Heavenly Father, held for us, and grown in us by the power of the Spirit and in the fellowship of Christ alone. For in Him and Him alone do we find life and life to the full.