Connect With God: All Things New
Read 2 Corinthians 5:17"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and see the new has come!" (CSB)My husband grew up farming, this is where he gets the nickname on Real Raw Redeemed as 'Farmer Adam'. He also loves to work outside and wear overalls (yes he's only 45). So, it's not uncommon for him to be outside on a tractor, or some form of equipment I don't know the name of, moving land around. Last week, after coming off of a winter that felt like it lasted 365 days, he was in demolition mode. Bulldozing some trees and clearing land. I love trees, why would he ever get rid of trees? Here's what he told me (in Chrystan words); "you have to get rid of the dead things to make room for the good growth and sometimes you even have to move good stuff out to make the other stuff even better." Little did he know that this would lead me to a place of pondering.
Friends, this is such truth for our lives. Springtime is one of the best examples we have of shedding the old and preparing for the new. Our lives require the same rhythm. Let's be willing to ask God, "what things do I need to peel away (or bulldoze over) in my life to bring on new growth?" It's not easy to remove things, Farmer Adam had a lot of work to do on our land to prepare it for spring, but we are already seeing the new growth come in and it is lovely even though the process was not so lovely.Sometimes, the dead stuff in our life we've been carrying around is just weight, dead weight. It weighs us down and keeps new things from growing in us. It could be called bitterness, envy, failed dreams, our prayers left unanswered, disobedience or even past hurts. These things are strangling our new growth. Do you really want the forest of your life to only house dead stuff? Or do you want to bulldoze over that, strip it away and prepare for new growth?God leads us in this, we aren't alone. We see this happening over and over again the scripture. In Isaiah 43 he says "Do not remember the past events, pay no attention to things of old. Look, I am about to do something new; even now it is coming. Do you not see it?" Do you know what that new thing was? It was Jesus. Jesus came to make all things new again, not so you could carry the bagged of sin and shame. Bulldoze those things over, take off the weighted backpack and receive a spirit of newness that stripping away the old offers.You know what I'm doing with the new space that Farmer Adam cleared out last week? I'm planting wildflowers! Can you just imagine it? From death to life! Spring and new growth we welcome you with wildly free spirits! (Cue the lovely music! This is where you dance in the fields of wildflowers and smile at the sun in a lovely white dress, can you imagine it? No? Just me? Ok.)And just for fun, here's a wildflower dancing song (blast from my past)[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_wb38KMXLs[/embed]