Category: New Beginnings

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Warning: No Mercy Hoarding Allowed

Dearest sisters,

I must tell you that although my letter is brief it comes with a fervent prayer that it will stir in you the sincerest desire to be thankful and generous with God’s mercy.  When I think of how our great God loves new beginnings there is no scripture more telling of this Truth than:

“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” Lamentations 3:22-23

Everyday God pours His mercy out to His beloved children because, each and every day we awaken from our slumber and open our eyes to this world, He knows we desperately need it.  We desperately need Him. Without Him we could easily be swallowed up by the world, the enemy and our own sinful flesh, the three battlefronts of our souls.

Because His love is sure and steadfast His mercy is endless. It does not take being in Christ very long before we realize how incredible this Truth is. If we have ever tried to forgive another person without this anchor you know, and I know our bitterness and resentment eventually resurface. Soon, the love and forgiveness we gave becomes something we wish we could take back. We become very choosy with whom we will give our mercy and forgiveness to. We decide who is worthy of it and who it is not! Wow! Wait just a minute that sounds familiar!  The servant who was graciously given mercy by his master and forgiveness for a debt he could never repay now chokes the person who owes him a day’s wages, comparatively speaking! Matthew 18:21-35.

“God so loved the world, that He gave us His Son…” (John 3:16). The language of this well- known verse exemplifies what the Lord says to us in Lamentations.  God loves so He gives. If you ever wonder why it is difficult to give mercy to another person, or that you want it back it could be that you don’t understand love at all. Love always gives and is constantly looking outward not inward. Check it out in I Corinthians 13:4-8.

The mercy which comes from the heart of God is never to be stored up and rationed out. That is what I call greedy. There are many excuses for hoarding the mercy God gives to us, but I think fear is most likely the number one excuse we are reserved in our giving. We are fearful of being hurt by the one we are making ourselves vulnerable to. We fear being rejected, we fear that if we give mercy to another there won’t be enough left for us. We fear being without at a later time, thinking God’s door will someday close. We fear that whatever we give out will not be given back to us. We fear looking stupid in the eyes of the world. We fear losing control of our little storehouses when in fact they do not even belong to us in the first place. You and I have been bought by the blood of Christ therefore we belong to God, He owns us! That includes our little storehouses.

We do not deserve God’s mercy, yet in an act of love He freely gives it to us.  It was not meant to be held on to but to be given out to others each day.  And at the end of the day our storehouse should be empty. Sister when I close my eyes at night I want my heart to have been emptied out, wrung out of all the goodness and mercy God has bestowed on me that day. Because, come the dawn of the next day (if He wills it to be) He will provide me (you) with it once again! New mercies each and every day. A new day a new beginning!

Who needs your mercy today? Will you choose to open the storehouse of your heart today and share what God has graciously poured into it? I pray that all who read this will do so gladly.

With love and mercy,

Susan

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Layers and Layers of New Beginnings

Dear sister,

I have a love-hate relationship with new beginnings. Whenever I try to start a new habit, I always want to start on a Monday. A new morning routine? I want to start but it’s already Tuesday! That means I have 6 more days of sleeping in. Want to read the Bible in a year but it’s the middle of July? I guess I’ll just have to wait until January. I can be fit and toned in 3 weeks? Great! Sign me up and teleport me to three weeks from today so I don’t have to experience the pain of sculpting my body into something resembling a swimsuit model. Oh, you don’t have a TARDIS? Never mind, then. (And yes, I just made a Doctor Who reference; no one is more surprised than me.)

My problem is that I want the benefit of the new habit but not the discipline or the work that comes along with it. It’s a good thing, then, that God doesn’t treat our spiritual transformations the way we often treat our physical ones. What if God said “Well, I know I’m supposed to start the hard work of softening Kayla’s heart today, but I’m just not feeling up to it. Maybe next week.”

No, thankfully God is always working in our hearts—through His word, through community with the church, through prayer, and through the sacraments. He’s not waiting for a new week, a new month, or a new year; He’s always working. He never slumbers or sleeps (Psalm 121:3-4).

But, God’s working out our new beginnings can be slow. Today, I realized that I’m still dealing with some of the same struggles that I was dealing with several years ago! One struggle is people pleasing. When I discovered this struggle in 2015, I read books on people pleasing, read verses on the fear of the Lord, and presumably prayed about my struggle (though I don’t remember with clarity). Three years later, however, I feel that I’m just as much a people pleaser as I was then. However, recently God revealed a new layer of my people pleasing heart. I realized that in my people pleasing what I’m really doing is attempting to control the responses of others. I will withhold truth, say what I think you’re expecting or wanting me to say, or stonewall you to avoid having to say anything altogether! All so that I (self-centered Kayla) do not have to deal with your response (which, in my head, is likely to be anger, rejection, or ridicule). Is that really what I’m doing? Yuck!

Thankfully, God is not impatient like we are. He knows that the “new beginning” he has blessed us with will take a lifetime to work out. He knows it’s better to reveal things to us in layers, not all at once, so we will repent, and heal, and change in layers. Just like I’m still learning about the pitfalls of people pleasing.

Sis, don’t be discouraged when you feel like you’re not making progress. Press into your struggles and see what else God may be teaching you and let your motivation to “put off the old self” (Ephesians 4:22) be renewed. Remember that God is pleased to give us new beginnings every day and He demonstrates this by calling us to a life of repentance—a life of turning away from our sinful patterns, and with the help of Christ, turning toward the way of righteousness and “putting on the new self”.

So, dear sister, don’t be like me. Don’t put off your new beginnings. Embrace them in every moment of every day for as long as we repent and believe God is willing to grant them to us.

Changing in layers,

Kayla

 

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New Beginnings

Dear sister,

After a not so patient four year wait, my husband Barrett, my four- year old daughter Annabelle, and I finally landed in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.  We had no time to refresh before heading to the transition home where our family’s dynamics would change forever.  We stunk, my hair was huge from tossing and turning on the flight, yet we all had bellies full of joy, anxiety, and anticipation.

Meanwhile, a set of eighteen month old twins, brother and sister, had no idea what was about to happen. It was like any other day for them in that smelly home.  They woke up to a room full of babies who cried and yelled just like them.  Their cloth diapers were changed, they were given a formula bottle, and were kept in a crib.  Then, something new happened.  They were given a pamper diaper, dressed, and carried outside…weird. They see a strange white person who reached out to them with tears.  She hugged them close, but they just looked around wanting to explore the dirt and be free from the tiny room they were just in.  Everything that was familiar and loved by them was just about to change forever.

They were chosen before they were born to be a part of our family.  We had to wait for the fullness of time for our family to be complete. All that they knew: abandonment, no mom and dad, no siblings, no freedom, no home, no inheritance, no given family name, was now gone.  Their new beginning had begun.  They were given a name, a home, a mom and dad, a sister, aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins, and an inheritance that could never be taken from them.  They were loved before they were in our family. They didn’t need to be cleaned up or have good behavior before we chose them.  We simply chose them to love forever, no matter what.

Our Savior loves new beginnings.  He gave new beginnings through Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Ruth, David, disciples, Saul, and all those who have trusted in Christ since then.  These new beginnings were not due to the actions of these people (because some of their actions were pretty rotten), but rather because of the choosing of our Creator to love us.  These people (and us) did not have to clean up their lives to be chosen and loved just like Ronnie and Lydia could not be cleaned up before we chose them.  Like Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:17;

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.  The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”  Now Ronnie and Lydia are in the Craigs, their old Ethiopian reality is gone, their new beginning of American life has begun.  But more than that, when they trust in Christ as their Savior, their new beginning and adoption will be complete.  Our Creator loves this new beginning!  So much so that He died for these new beginnings.

What about you friend? Have you had this new beginning? Have you trusted in Christ to have your old ways tossed aside and your new life given?  There is no need to get cleaned up before this new beginning, your new life is given to you in full once you trust Christ.  He did it all for you when he nailed your sins to the cross. He rose again on the third day showing he conquered the penalty of your sin.  Now you are clean and righteous before God.  Your new beginning will be complete.

And what about you believing sister?  Are you encouraged each day by the new life He has given you? Allow Paul to remind you of what your new beginning has given you:

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight.”(Ephesians 1:3-9, emphasis by me).

Your new beginning was given to you when you were dirty and dead in your sins.  Then you were adopted and grafted into this forever family. You have all the rights of the firstborn son who died for you!  Praise and worship him for this today!  Live a life of joy and thankfulness knowing you were given this new beginning out of a loving Father who calls you his own.  Just like Ronnie and Lydia, we have a new name, new Father, new siblings, new family, new inheritance, and new home to the praise of his glorious grace.

Your sister in Christ

(and newness of Life)

Colleen

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Starting Over

Dear Sister,

Start at the beginning…Let’s begin again…Beginning high school…Beginning a new friendship…Beginning marriage…Beginning a new chapter in life, a new job…Beginning a treatment…A new day…A new season…A new year…A new decade…New life…

There is something so hopeful in those words. Beginning. New.  Something is coming which shows promise, a sense of starting over, another chance, a new opportunity.  We tend to appreciate possibilities for the new unless we fall into that category of people who remain satisfied with the status quo, who resist change.  Yet, even those comfortable in their circumstances, beneath the superficial and with some reflection, might admit some new beginnings are desirable, preferable. We are people who often gravitate toward the new, love second chances.

Does our great God like new beginnings? I know He does. He is filled with tenderness, kindness, compassion. He wants to and is more than able to wipe away our tears and anxieties and terrors and stagnation and point us to His new and best way, but what do we do with the new beginnings He grants us? I’m reminded of Israel. How many reprieves and forgivenesses and mercies did they receive only to squander them again and again, preferring wretched idols and licentiousness and danger to serving God and obedience and safety? What about you and me?

Many years ago I was entrenched in misery. Nothing was going the way I wanted. I was out of control.  Having grown up in a Christian home, knowing the gospel intellectually, thinking perhaps reading spiritual things would magically solve my issues, I bought a Bible and inscribed on the cover page, “To myself—Here is to a new beginning.” I purposed to turn over a new leaf, throw off the behaviors that were making me wallow, regain a semblance of control.  I was hopeful. My natural tendency to organization and order kicked in and I was reasonably confident life would give me the things I wanted as I worked my plan. It lasted about a week. The idols, the sin, the love of the world reared their ugly heads again in full-blown power and vengeance. After all, they had not been put to death or eradicated, only minimally suppressed for seven days. My will-power could not effect a lasting change, my affections had not been altered. I was the same-old, same-old, with a temporary change of façade. In fact, my sin seemed to cling more tenaciously with ever deepening and beckoning hooks.

However, God’s grasp was deeper and more powerful. Years later He did bring me to Himself and make me that new creation, wiping out my sins, delighting in giving me a true new beginning, one in which my sins were no longer counted against me, Jesus having paid the death penalty for me. He changed my disposition, my affections, my purposes. He gave me Himself in place of the idols of my wicked imagination and consumption. With all that long ago marvel, He continues to give me fresh starts, including daily, even moment-by-moment cleansing, new mercies every morning, healing, the sweet gift of forgiveness from my family and friends, new ministries,  new people to encourage with the gospel, and on and on.

The most coveted new beginning, aside from God’s granting His children saving faith, is when faith ends and becomes sight.  My precious father has known this new beginning, as has my dear, suffering pastor. And yet, it is not really a new beginning. It is simply the continuation or furthering of that new beginning when the triune God, in eternity past, chose these two men for Himself, in time and space granted them regeneration and salvation, and now in eternity has made them like Christ, for they have seen Him with their eyes and have become like Him forever and ever and ever, without end.

What about you? Has He granted you the first new beginning? Do you know the Savior? Are your sins forgiven?  If not, trust Him now. Ask Him to give you Himself. If you do know Him, what are you doing with the new beginnings, new learnings, new opportunities, fresh starts that, in His grace, He is giving you? Let’s not be like the unfaithful servant who hid his Master’s money in his fear and irresponsibility. Let us not presume upon God’s grace and His long-suffering heart. Let us make maximum use of newly-given opportunities of gifts, of hours, of days, forgetting ourselves, and like Jesus, for the hope set before us, endure patiently and with joy any sufferings given and take advantage of every mercy He lavishes, putting His beauty, faithfulness, and love on display before a watching world that is desperate for new beginnings.

With gratitude that the old has passed and all things are indeed new—Waiting expectantly with you for His glorious appearing,

Cherry