Despite having always enjoyed math, physics was never my cup of tea. However, I do remember Newton’s First Law of Motion states that an object at rest remains at rest and an object in motion remains in motion (unless acted on by another force). In other words, it seems that a disinclination to change is written into the very fabric of the universe. Now, some seem to relish the excitement of change, but if you are like me, you tend to be more like every other object in the universe and are uncomfortable with change. However, I am about to voluntarily enter into a major personal change (an international move), and I wanted to take some time to reflect on both the fear of and opportunity brought by change.

First, I would say that fear of change is perfectly natural. After all, avoiding change until forced to confront it is a law of nature! However, I have been pondering why this is the case. I think that fear of change is really an acknowledgment of the inherent risk posed by change and specifically the fear that things will get worse or go badly. For example, with moving to another country, there are about a million things that could go wrong: awkward situations in a new culture, losing contact with friends and family back home, losing one’s possessions in transit, or illnesses to name just a few. In fact, this fear of change can be healthy because it forces us to carefully think things through and protects us from acting rashly. The problem comes when this fear starts to hold us back from making changes that are positive. An avoidance of change does guarantee that things will never worsen. But avoiding change will also ensure things never get better. To go back to the move, letting fear of change prevent me from moving would mean no new friends will be made, no new travel experiences will be had, no new possessions will be acquired, and no personal growth will occur.

This leads to considering the other side of fear: the opportunity of change. I won’t lie that change can be messy and difficult. But it can also bear amazing fruit and has the potential to transform our lives into something even better than we had imagined. Certainly for people of the Christian faith, we find countless examples in scripture of people’s lives being fundamentally changed for the better through divine providence. Sometimes those changes were desperately prayed for and other times the change was unexpectedly thrust upon the person. But in each case with a positive transformation, the person involved had an intense faith in God’s guiding hand and that making a change would be difficult but eventually lead to an awesome outcome. Instead of focusing on what could go wrong, there was an inherent trust that there were better times ahead even if things were bumpy along the way. With my upcoming move, I am fully trusting that despite any issues, the move will be well worth it and unlock a plethora of personal growth and treasure.

So the question is where does this leave us? While the fear of a change is valuable and helps ensure we don’t dive headfirst into a disaster or force a change just for the sake of making change, we also can’t let it hold us back from making necessary alterations in our lives. Through careful prayer and reflection and with the proper framing we can evaluate whether a particular change will be a risk worth taking. Having always been a somewhat anxious person, my mom taught me an excellent framework for considering the unknown. Ask yourself, what is the worst outcome you could imagine? Then, what is the best outcome you could imagine? Finally, what is the most likely outcome? With each of those answers in hand, you can more clearly evaluate just about any situation and arrive at the right avenue to take. Doing so, especially in combination with prayer, has always served me well and indeed helped me make the decision to pursue my international move. I now hope sharing it will allow others to find it useful when considering a change of their own!

– Christian Svetnicka