Garth George: We live in an era of constant and rapid change

We live in an era of constant and rapid change, probably more rapid than at any time in human history. Much of it is welcome, some disconcerting, and some downright horrifying.

But the fact is that there are three things in life that are inevitable - death, taxes and change.

Those of us who at some time in our lives come to terms with the unavoidability and certainty of our death should grow old contentedly, even serenely. Those who don't will, as they grow older, become more and more anxious and afraid.

The same applies to change. I don't mean the sort of change that we plan and carry out ourselves, such as my wife and I deciding to live out what days are left to us in a delightful lifestyle village, but rather the change that comes to us through growing older decade by decade, and to our society inexorably, usually in the name of "progress" but too often these days in the name of political correctness, complete with large doses of liberal amorality.

It inevitability means that there is nothing we can do about it. No matter how hard we try we cannot stop it, once it has happened we can only rarely unchange it.

To attempt to do so is generally futile, a waste of our time and substance. Those who are locked into a rose-tinted vision of what used to be are incapable of fully experiencing and enjoying what is.

That is the bad news. The good news is that we can so handle change, in our own lives and in society at large, that it becomes largely irrelevant, irrespective of how sudden, radical or rapid it is.

The mechanisms by which we can achieve this are readily available if we will but recognise them. They are based first on an admission of the existence of God (the same yesterday, today and forever) who is creator and sustainer of the universe and all that is in it and who is, whether we believe it or not, in control of our destiny.

We are told in the Bible, for instance, that God ordains the make-up of the civil governments we get; those of us who are believers can be excused for wondering from time to time what on Earth he is up to.

Through the Bible God has given us a set of timeless principles which, if we try to live by them, will make what is going on around us, and constant change in particular, a matter of mere passing interest.

The most valuable of these principles are in the Ten Commandments and in the analysis of love as given by St Paul in 1st Corinthians, chapter 13.

They show us how we should relate, first to God and then to one another. The principles (in short, honesty, purity, unselfishness and love) are not dependent on outside influences; they spring from God within us, have nothing to do with how others treat us, and can be practised irrespective of the circumstances in which we find ourselves.

No matter how much the world changes, no matter how much our circumstances change, the principles do not. They are eternal. And my experience is that the more I try to practise them in all my affairs, the more content I am in the society in which I live, no matter how topsy-turvy it might be at any moment.

Our task, then, is not to resist change or to try to stop it, but to share with any who will listen the eternal truths by which to live untroubled by it.

After all, this (not yesterday, last year or last century) is the day the Lord has made. And we are enjoined to rejoice and be glad in it.