The God of your fathers

This year will pass, ushering in the new year the next day. Another day, another year, and the cycle repeats almost endlessly. We’ve seen a lot of changes this year – some surprising, some significant, and others, disheartening. I guess the proliferation of fake news is the most unpropitious – an open attack on truth itself to a point when one sometimes doesn’t know what the truth is anymore and what is not.

But in all these, only God remains unchanging. He is to us, and speaks to us, the same way he did to Moses more than 3,000 years ago when he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” (Exodus 3:6). But he said this to Moses hundreds of years after the patriarchs died and Jesus is continually teaching us today that “He is not the God of the dead but of the living.” (Matthew 22:32). God is immutable and God is truth – and nothing can ever change or destroy that.

When we are faced with what is happening today, all the warping, advancements, transmutations…when we are sometimes overwhelmed by all the changes, we can remain assured and unfazed, by the fact that God never changes, and thus, the truth doesn’t change. Years come and go, the world may venture into the unknown and the uncertain, but whatever happens, God is there and remains steadfast and the same, and his plan for the world, and for you and for me, stays the same. It is our perception, belief, and conviction of the truth that wavers and totters.

And he’s not just the father of the patriarchs and of Moses but to many later sons, too – the father of Elijah (2 Kings 2:14), the father of Daniel (Daniel 2:23), and of Joshua, David, and other prophets and believers. For our God is not a distant and uncaring Creator but a personal loving father to all of us who consider him as one, when we come into a saving personal relationship with him. He was a father to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in a very personal way, the same way that he can be a father to each of us in the same personal way. God does not change, he deals and speaks to us in the same way he spoke to them thousands of years ago, and in the same way he will speak to many in the years to come.

And so when we enter into the new year, we can do so with confidence, grounded in the reality that the unchanging God of creation, who was with his people millennia ago, is with us, today and in the future, for those faith is anchored on him. “God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28). We can face the new year without fear, with eagerness and hope. Let me greet a blessed and fruitful new year to all! May the Lord God bless you always.