All Things New

I’m sitting at my desk and a thousand thoughts are running through my head. I am reliving parts of the service yesterday (as I always do), I am thinking about the Super Bowl (a great game), I am planning different aspects of my week (many meetings and events) and I am thinking about some things in life that I would like to do over (better grades, practiced harder, studied more, etc.). It can be fun, frustrating and challenging all at once.

As I think about all of this stuff I am reminded that God does not view life or history as we do. In fact, God has a completely different perspective. While we view history and time as linear (a definite starting and stopping point) God views time as circular. He is above it all. It has no beginning and no end for him. He simply has always been and will always be, and our perception of him is very small in comparison.

When I think about all the stuff I would change, I must remember that the most important thing is that God has changed me. I am not who I was (thank you God!!!) and I am not all that I am to become. But God has changed me. He has allowed me to become a different person that lives in grace and freedom. He has allowed me to see life through a new lens. He has given me the ability to enjoy the presence of today and to overcome the pain from yesterday.

It is so easy to see life in a snapshot. Our memory gets frozen in time and we still view whatever or whoever we were the same as we are today. But that is not God’s design for us. God takes the old things of our lives and he gets rid of them. He restores us and he makes us new creatures in him.

“Therefore if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation; the old has gone and the new has come.” 2 Corinthians 5:17.

It is so easy to miss the fact that God has called us to be new in him. What makes you cringe when you think about your past? What makes you want to disappear when people start talking about certain things? We are not called to live in fear and failure of the past but as new creatures in the life of Christ.

So, let go of the past. Move forward in Christ. And allow yourself to experience the joy and the celebration of a life as a new creation in Jesus.