TV character Adrian Monk once quipped, “There’s an old saying: Don’t change anything… ever.”

I feel a little self-conscious when I say that I can identify with Mr. Monk, but I do prefer routine and predictability.

As the calendar draws nearer to my departure day, I am forced to realize that my routine is about to change a lot. Some of the changes will be minor; for example, I might find that Thursday is not the best day to buy groceries. But other changes are a little more daunting. For most of my life, my parents have been within a half-hour drive (not a 12-hour flight), and for the first time in our dating relationship, my boyfriend won’t be working in the office next to mine. These are the changes that are a little harder to stomach.

This morning I presented at a church near the NC/VA border, and before the service, a church member was telling me about some recent changes that he has observed in his area of the country. At the end of the conversation, he said to me, “But change is good. It has to be.” We didn’t have a chance to continue the discussion, but I believe his point was something like this: because God is good, because God is sovereign, and because God is working all things for His glory, we can trust that all changes will ultimately end in something good (even if we don’t see the good until Heaven).

In Romans 8:28-29, Paul writes, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.” In these verses, Paul explains that God does work all things for good, and he says that the good often includes sanctification (conforming us to the image of his Son, or shaping us to live as Christ lived).

As I look ahead to the next few weeks in NC and then to the following months in Spain, I see that some hard changes are coming. Yet, because we serve the sovereign God who works all things for His glory, we can all trust that “change is good. It has to be.”