Coming off another solid RHRC onsite, I’ve been thinking about just how much my professional landscape has changed.

During my decade in state government and youth ministry, there was a stretch where not much changed beyond the natural flow of students graduating, new hires arriving, and former coworkers transitioning into whatever came next. Then came the last 82 months—a span featuring not one, not two, but three job changes.

After spending so much of my adult life surrounded by relative continuity, that amount of movement has left me a tad disoriented at times. When our surroundings keep changing, it’s easy to look backward and wonder: Did I miss something? Did I make a wrong turn? Why does everyone else seem to be settling in while I keep starting over?

But I want to encourage some of you not to interpret a higher frequency of change as evidence that you’re consistently missing the mark. Truth is, I think we have a tendency to confuse continuity with confirmation.

When Duration Becomes Our Measuring Stick

Stability, longevity, promotion—most of us yearn to feel secure and recognized within safe settings. When we find something good, we naturally want to keep it good. We root for people to stay, cultures to remain intact, and familiar surroundings to remain familiar. Without realizing it, permanence can become evidence that we must be doing something right.

The inverse is equally dangerous. When jobs change, relationships shift, communities evolve, or assignments end, we wonder what all that movement says about us. But in all this, we must accept a certain notion: Duration is a terrible substitute for discernment. It should not automatically be synonymous with influence, faithfulness, or, dare I say it, a job well done.

You can remain somewhere for fifteen years without longevity proving you heard God correctly, just as you can experience three career changes in 82 months without turnover proving you didn’t. Neither permanence nor transition gets the final word on faithfulness. Paul reminds us that it is ultimately the Lord who evaluates our faithfulness (1 Corinthians 4:2–5). That ought to challenge our tendency to use visible outcomes as the final verdict on someone’s obedience.

The deeper danger is allowing either permanence or transition to become our measuring stick. We can miss what God is forming within us through change while simultaneously failing to appreciate the now for what it is.

The Invitation to Remain Present

Abiding in the present is one of the easiest concepts to understand and one of the hardest places to remain grounded. Perhaps that’s because we crave control over a future we were never given control over in the first place. James 4:13–15 confronts that tendency rather directly. We make plans for tomorrow, often forgetting how little control we actually possess over what tomorrow brings.

Once we encounter a good thing, we want to preserve it. We do this with jobs, churches, ministries, communities, and relationships. Even relationships can become mile markers of maturation and advancement—evidence that life is progressing according to plan. But maybe faithfulness isn’t primarily about preserving the assignment. Maybe it’s about how we receive it while it’s ours.

Ecclesiastes reminds us that there is a season for everything (Ecclesiastes 3:1). Not every season carries the same responsibilities, relationships, opportunities, or duration. That doesn’t make the shorter seasons less meaningful, nor does it make the longer ones inherently more fruitful.

Season the Room

Jesus called us the salt of the earth and the light of the world (Matthew 5:13–16). I’ve been sitting with that imagery differently lately. Our calling isn’t necessarily to preserve the prior functioning of every environment we enter, keeping everything and everyone exactly where we found them. We are called to season those environments with the light and life of Christ.

That means bringing love where cynicism has taken root. Truth where convenience has become easier. Encouragement where people feel unseen. Excellence where apathy has settled in. Reconciliation where relationships have fractured. Curiosity and humility into conversations we could just as easily make about ourselves. Salt affects what it touches. Light changes what can be seen. Neither requires ownership of the room to make a difference within it.

Our responsibility, then, isn’t to guarantee permanence but to faithfully sow. Plant seeds. Water when given the opportunity. Love people well. Tell the truth. Make yourself available. Then trust God with whatever grows after you. Paul captures this beautifully in 1 Corinthians 3:6–7. One plants, another waters, but God gives the growth.

What a freeing reminder. We aren’t responsible for manufacturing every outcome, preserving every relationship, or ensuring every investment produces visible fruit during our tenure. We’re responsible for being faithful with what’s been entrusted to us.

Appreciating What Carries Over

That doesn’t diminish the joy of journeying with people. Some relationships graciously carry over into evolving seasons, surviving changing organizations, titles, churches, assignments, and zip codes. Those relationships are beautiful gifts—but they aren’t guarantees, and they certainly aren’t scorecards. Perhaps part of maturity is learning to appreciate what carries over without requiring everything to.

For me, especially in social settings, the roadmap has become increasingly simple: Show up. Be grateful. Listen. Show up without needing to prove why you belong in the room. Be grateful without demanding that the room remain exactly as you found it. Listen without constantly calculating what the conversation, relationship, or opportunity might become.

Merge humility with curiosity. Ask questions. Learn people. Don’t hide behind your DISC or Enneagram as though a personality profile gets the final word on how available you can become to another human being. Philippians 2:3–4 calls us to humility and genuine consideration for others. That invitation doesn’t disappear simply because engaging with people comes more naturally to some of us than others.

Perhaps that’s another form of faithfulness: being willing to enter the room, invest in the people within it, and resist making every interaction a referendum on ourselves.

Faithfully Tend the Field

Whether you’re still working the same job ten-plus years later or navigating yet another wilderness, receive the assignment with both hands on the plow. Tend what has been entrusted to you without demanding assurances about how long you get to keep it. Colossians 3:23–24 reminds us to approach our work wholeheartedly, ultimately serving the Lord rather than merely seeking the approval of people. That instruction doesn’t come with a minimum tenure requirement.

I’m learning that permanence was never the promise. Presence was the invitation.

So season the room. Shine the light. Plant the seed. Love the people God has placed in front of you. And when the landscape eventually changes, don’t measure the value of the season by whether you were allowed to remain in it.

You were never asked to preserve the field exactly as you found it. You were asked to faithfully tend it while it was yours.

Selah.