Are you a shadow shifter?

I was in a bayside park on a warm day this past week. So I took the beach towel from the trunk of my old clunker and spread it in the shade of a small tree.

Ah!

A moment of peace and quiet near the water, in the cool of the shade that protected me from the blazing sun.

Then, for just a few moments, I dozed off … only to be rudely awakened by the the sun’s harsh rays engulfing me.

The shadow had shifted!

While I could rely on the tree to cast a shade, I couldn’t rely on the shade not to shift, to stay where I needed it so that it could protect me from the sun. And so, the tree was beneficial but unreliable.

You might know some people like that, but God isn’t one of them …

“So don’t be misled, my dear brothers and sisters. Whatever is good and perfect is a gift coming down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens. He never changes or casts a shifting shadow,” James 1:16-17.

Did you catch that?

God never casts a shifting shadow!

Anything that is good … everything that is perfect … in our lives, comes down to us from our heavenly Father, a God so great that he created (among other things) all the lights in the heavens. That amazing God, that powerful Creator, that gracious and merciful Provider of all that is good and perfect, is also reliable.

He is unchanging.

When we spread our lives in the protection of the shadow of His love, we have no reason to fear that He will shift on us.

We never have to be concerned about what comes to us from God not being good, not being perfect, or for God to lose interest in us and provide nothing at all. Because God doesn’t change.

We, on the other hand, can be flighty and flaky. If we were trees, our shadows might spin!

Seth Dillon helps shed light on the shiftiness of our hearts with this report …

A recent survey by Ellison Research in Phoenix finds 87 percent of U.S. adults believe in the existence of sin, which is defined as “something that is almost always considered wrong, particularly from a religious or moral perspective.”

Topping the list are adultery (81%) and racism (74%).

But other sins no longer draw majority condemnation. Premarital sex? Only 45% call it sin. Gambling? Just 30% say it’s sinful.

“A lot of this is relative. We tend to view sin not as God views it, but how we view it,” says Ellison president Ron Sellers.

We want a God who provides only what is good and perfect, and a God who does that reliably. But living as His children, we don’t want to be held to such a reliable standard. We prefer the flexibility of situational ethics, the “freedom” to not be relied upon 100 percent of the time.

Most of us are fairly adept at shifting our own shadows. The Bible helps us understand how serious a flaw that is:

“If you are faithful in little things, you will be faithful in large ones. But if you are dishonest in little things, you won’t be honest with greater responsibilities. And if you are untrustworthy about worldly wealth, who will trust you with the true riches of heaven? And if you are not faithful with other people’s things, why should you be trusted with things of your own?” Luke 16:10-12.

We know we can count on God because He doesn’t cast a shifting shadow. But how about you? Are you reliable like your heavenly Father, or are you a shadow shifter?

Scotty