I scroll through the headlines on the front page of a news website. It has been a crazy and hectic week, typical for a college student I guess. Between writing endless amounts of papers, reading excessive materials for class, and studying (AKA cramming) for tests, I have not had a lot of time to keep up with events going on in the world. A lot of things happen every day; and after not keeping up with the news for a few days, it’s like I’m returning from another planet.

Needless to say, after just a few minutes of skimming over the past few days of news, my heart sank. And I became painfully aware that this is the world we live in. Riots, over-the-top debates, school shootings, terrorism… all I see is pain.

God is in control. He has a plan.

These eight words are my go to when I feel discouraged, devastated, and fearful. These two short sentences have brought so much comfort in the past. Just repeating these phrases to myself and others during rough times has made it possible to remember God’s sovereignty in every situation. But after this week, I am becoming more a more aware of my need to add another short phrase to my comfort statement.

God does not change.

If you are a Christian, or even grew up around church, you probably know the verse “God is the same yesterday, today and forever”. But I have a question for you; do you really KNOW this? I thought I knew this as fact, but this week has shown that I did not truly KNOW that God is the same forever. If I had truly known that God was the same yesterday, today, and forever, I would have known this applies to His control and plan.

If God has always been the same, then He has always has the same control; He has not dropped the ball or lost His grip for even a millisecond. He did not put us on the back burner for a few days or weeks. His control over the entire world has always been the same- complete control. In the same way, if God has always been the same, then so has His plan. His plan for our lives and the world has always been the same. He does not change His plan for us depending on what kind of day He is having, or His feelings, or the weather (which I thing is hard for a lot of people, including myself, to understand). His plans never change.

From now on, in the good and the bad, I am going to remember three phrases:

God is in control. God has a plan. God does not change.

“Yours, Lord, is the greatness and the power
and the glory and the majesty and the splendor,
for everything in heaven and earth is yours.
Yours, Lord, is the kingdom; you are exalted as head over all.”
1 Chronicles 29:11

“But the plans of the Lord stand firm forever, the purposes of his heart through all generations.”
Psalm 33:11

“For I am the Lord, I change not;” Malachi 3:6