The Many Colors of a Chameleon

If there is one constant in life it is change. Change is inevitable. Change happens every day all around us.

It is day then it is night. The sun can be shining one minute and the next minute it is pouring down rain. You have a good job, one that you really enjoy, only to find out that the company is losing its contract, potentially leaving you unemployed. Yesterday you were healthy, today the doctor tells you that you have cancer.

You thought your marriage was “happily ever after” only to have your spouse tell you it is “happy no more.” You’ve raised your children and now look forward to enjoying life with your spouse only to have them die unexpectedly. Your sweet cuddly five-year old soon becomes a teenager. Your empty nest becomes un-empty as your ailing parent moves in with you, zapping you of freedom and energy. You look in the mirror and the person looking back at you somehow is older than you remember.

Do you ever feel like a chameleon, always having to change colors to adapt to your surroundings? Did you know that the primary reason chameleons change colors is not for camouflage? They do not need to hide from most predators since they can run in excess of twenty miles per hour, which helps them avoid most dangers. The primary reasons chameleons change colors is to reflect their mood and to adjust to temperature variations. Reminds me a little of the mood ring fashion fad in the 1970s. If you are older than Gen Xers, you probably remember them and might have even owned one; rings ornamented with a hollow quartz stone filled with temperature-sensitive liquid crystal that changed colors depending upon the wearer’s mood.   

Sometimes the game changes, sometimes the rules of the game change, sometimes both change, many times with little advance warning. Most of us do not like change but change can be healthy. Change often forces us to mature and grow, to be (or become) flexible, and change often pushes us past our comfort zones into places we previously thought impossible. Change can also be painful and discouraging, causing us to question and doubt. Like the chameleon, we are all forced to change and adapt to the ever-changing environment around us.

Despite the chameleon-like change that is in the world, we have a God who never changes. The theological word for this is immutable, which is defined as unchanging over time or unable to be changed. God Himself tells us that He does not change. In Malachi 3:6 we read, “I the LORD do not change.”

Elsewhere in scripture we read these encouraging words, found in 1 Peter 1:24-25, “All people are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord endures forever.” (Also see Isaiah 40:6-8, Hebrews 13:8, James 1:17.)

So, today, and as you look into the future, you can trust God in all things, all the time! He is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. He is all-powerful and sovereign (omnipotent), all knowing all the time (omniscience), and He is everywhere at once (omnipresent).

In an ever-changing chameleon world, we have a never-changing God!

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