TEN YEARS GONE: God Changes His Mind (Revised for Lent)

When Judgment Yields to Mercy

First published December 26, 2015. Revised for Lent, 2026.

Now therefore amend your ways and your doings, and obey the voice of the LORD your God, and the LORD will change his mind about the disaster that he has pronounced against you.

— Jeremiah 26

This reflection was first written on December 26, 2015 — the Second Day of Christmas, when the glow of celebration was still fresh and the Church was remembering that the story of Christ does not end at the manger.

Today, however, we are in early Lent.

That shift matters.

What was once written in the afterglow of birth and new life, now reads in the quieter light of repentance.

Jeremiah records something that can unsettle careful readers: God announces judgment, and then says He will “change His mind” if the people repent.

But we are also told that God does not change.

Which is it?

The tension dissolves when we remember that God’s character does not change — but His responses to us do.

When people turn, He turns toward them. When they harden, judgment advances. When they repent, mercy rushes in. The consistency is not in the outcome; it is in His covenant love.

In 2015, I wrote about a friend who struggled with faith because Christ did not return within the apostolic generation. He felt promises had failed. Yet Scripture shows again and again that divine warnings are often invitations rather than fixed decrees. Judgment pronounced is not always judgment executed.

Why?

Because God is not eager to destroy what He loves.

The prophets reveal a pattern: threats of disaster are meant to awaken repentance. When repentance comes, mercy follows. This is not instability; it is relationship.

A parent warns a child not because punishment is desired, but because restoration is. The warning is real. The consequence is possible. But love remains the deeper constant.

Lent sharpens this truth. It is a season not of panic, but of amendment. “Amend your ways,” Jeremiah says. The call is not to despair, but to turn.

When the New Testament speaks of Christ’s return, it carries the same tension of urgency and patience. Every generation is called to live as though He could return at any moment. And yet centuries pass.

Perhaps that delay is not failure but mercy.

Perhaps the apparent postponement is space — space for repentance, for growth, for generations not yet born.

“God changes His mind” is not a statement about divine indecision. It is a statement about divine responsiveness.

And that is good news.

Originally written in the brightness of Christmas, this reflection now sits more comfortably in Lent. For Lent reminds us that amendment precedes renewal, and that mercy often waits just beyond our turning.

Christ is coming. That promise stands.

And until that day, the patience of God is not weakness. It is grace.