“Water Tank Hill” no longer has a water tank. The road that contained “Dead Man’s Curve” no longer exists. Subdivisions are now where pastures were. Fences that sectioned off places are gone. The place where Dad bought many of our family cars is no longer a car dealership. The high school of my graduation no longer exists. Joyce’s high school building is now being “gutted” to become another facility. The whole area was economically depressed when I grew up—now it is a resort and retirement area.

Things change. Have not things always changed in all centuries? Can you not hear elderly people saying as they looked at an area centuries ago, “I remember when ...”

Perhaps it is not so much that “things change,” but that we change. We attended a reunion last weekend. I tried to match my memories of 50 years ago with the white-haired people I saw who did not fit the physical descriptions I recalled. As I looked, I wondered, “What do they see as they look at me?” Maybe the “changed things” are merely mileposts that verify that we passed this way once some time ago.

Transitions occur slowly in most instances. So do we transition slowly, slowly enough that we deceive ourselves. I look in the mirror every day, and I do not see that many changes. I see the image, and my mind says, “You have not changed that much!” (My mind lies to me about some things!) I can pretend I have not “changed that much” until I see things that have changed dramatically—only then am I forced to admit, “You have changed a lot, too!”

If we are honest with ourselves, we hunger deeply for something that does not change. The older you get, the more wonderful the desire is to know someone, to be somewhere that never changes. When you are young, change represents adventuresome opportunities. However, that also will change. As you get older, change represents frustrations. I appreciate the kids helping me with electronic gadgets, but the electronic gadgets themselves frustrate me just by existing.

Jesus Christ is the changeless one. The changeless One invites us to be part of an existence that knows no change and will never need to change. We will be suitable for that existence, and it will be suitable for us. In it there is stability and no frustration. Now that is a place worth seeing—and staying!