“Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.”

—JAMES 1:17

Every year that passes delivers a real, tangible reminder of the effects of time. Hard, sculpted bodies soften. Smooth, youthful faces wrinkle. Slender, narrow feet swell or flatten. Taut, firm skin loosens and fails to cooperate. Every week the mirror introduces us to a person we don’t entirely recognize. Whenever we find a picture of us, taken from two, three, four years ago or more—my goodness, we’d almost forgotten. Did we really wear our hair that way? Did we really fit into that top? Did we really have such smooth skin?

Time reveals the temporal. It highlights the slow but steady decline that everyone on Earth is subject to experiencing. Everything changes. Nothing stays the same—not the way we once knew it. Jobs become deleted. Prices go up. Children take on new interests and grow into different paths. Particular foods we once enjoyed without a second thought now keep us up at night with heartburn. The workout that always sufficed doesn’t budge the scales like it once did. Maintaining our energy level is not the effortless task it used to be. Things we’d counted on to be there when we reached a certain age fail to come together as we’d planned, even as certain people we admired prove unfaithful and fractured.

Life just refuses to stay put.
And yet God stays the same.
His Word, His truth, Himself.
Unchanged.

The older I get, the more I notice and love—and am frankly astonished at the power of—this quality in His nature. He shows up every single morning without any “variation or shifting shadow.” Always the same. Ever constant. Unchanging. Unmoving. He is the first and the last. Eternity in our midst—His Spirit fresh and alive in us, same as on the day we first met Him—His mercies new with each approaching sunrise. “Your years,” the psalmist said of Him, “will not come to an end” (Ps. 102:27). He will always be who He’s always been, no matter how quickly time passes or how many changes we’re forced to navigate.

Reminding yourself of this fact today should give you confidence—a confidence you will need in these ever-changing times. He will never cease being faithful and good, strong and true. He will always be light, with “absolutely no darkness in him” (1 John 1:5 CSB). He will always be “love” (1 John 4:16), even on days when you feel the most condemned and unforgivable. The Son will always live “to make intercession” for you (Heb. 7:25), never leaving you exposed and alone and without “an Advocate with the Father” (1 John 2:1). You may feel tempted to worry or be concerned about a lot of new developments, but you never need to wonder whether or not you’ll find God eternally trustworthy in the midst of them.

Each year may be new to us, but He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

The Lord is good; His lovingkindness is everlasting and His faithfulness to all generations.
—PSALM 100:5