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