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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

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You Thought Love Was Easy

Dear sister,

I have three vivacious children whom I love deeply.  One just turned seven and the twins just turned four.  Each have their own distinct personality that leave us both laughing and banging our head numerous times throughout the day.  We practice catechism questions during our breakfast time to inform our effervescent and willful kids of who our God is, why he made us and all things, and also to give me wisdom in how to teach them about how to do life from a biblical world view. Today we worked on our sin questions:

  • What does every sin deserve? The wrath and curse of God
  • How sinful are you by nature? I am corrupt in every part of my being
  • What is the sinful nature that we inherit from Adam called? Original sin
  • Can anyone go to heaven with this sinful nature? No. Our hearts must be changed before we can believe in Jesus and go to heaven
  • Who can change a sinner’s heart? The Holy Spirit alone

Whoa.  These questions often remind me of the weight and hopelessness of sin and informs my children of what their sins deserve.  A needed fact to help them ask themselves how they can be free of this wrath and curse.  My heart longs for this wrath and curse of God to be turned away from my kids and others who have not trusted in Christ.  This holy heat of wrath is real.  But how do we comprehend his wrath and its purpose?  It’s helpful to look at God’s love, righteousness, and jealousy to gain this understanding.  Paul writes in 1 Corinthians that God is love.  His love is the foundation of all his qualities…it is not his only quality…it holds up his others.  His love is good.  His love is righteous.  His love is jealous.  His love moves him to wrath.  But how?

Let’s look at his righteousness first.  John Frame defines God’s righteousness as how God “acts according to a perfect internal standard of right and wrong.  All his actions are within the limits of that standard.”  That God is good is the foundation of his righteousness.  We find his standard for law and justice in his law. Where is this law?  It’s the Word of God!  Not only does he give this law, he follows it as seen in Christ.  He does what is right and just.  This implies that righteousness is seen in actions. This is important because unrighteousness will also be seen in actions.  God always does what is right.  Humans do not.  And God cannot condone what is not right, sin as sin is lawlessness and lawlessness must bring some kind of penalty.  Hmmmm…a penalty has to be paid.

Next lets look at how God’s law is jealous.  He is jealous for his great name, he will not give his glory to another.  Moses describes his jealousy as a consuming fire (Deut. 4:24).  His jealousy is focused specifically on the sin of idolatry.  He has an exclusive love for his people and he demands reciprocal love from them, too.  If they give glory to another, watch out!  His jealous love will be seen fiercely, and rightly so.  His jealousy demands wrath.  He made a covenant with his people that demands exclusivity.  If his people are unfaithful to him, he is fiercely angry and jealous, just how a wife would be if she discovered her husband was unfaithful.  This is how God’s wrath comes on those who put idols before his name.  The penalty for loving something or someone more than God is his wrath.

This brings us to wrath. Jealousy and his standard of complete righteousness being broken are motives for wrath.  Wrath opposes our unrighteous sin in general and executes the punishments severely (Num. 11:33; 2 Kings 22:13, John 3:36, Rom 1:18, Eph. 5:6, Col 3:6, Heb. 3:11; 4:3, Rev 14:10, 19; 15:1, 7; 16:1, 19:15) Remember that our God is a consuming fire (Heb. 12:29).  So God’s decisions of salvation and wrath are made from His good and righteous personal decisions that are grounded in his love. We cannot separate out his character to make him all of one character and nothing of another.  He is all of these all of the time.  I love how John Frame says, “There is something wild, mysterious, and threatening about God’s wrath, which makes it difficult to reconcile this with his love.”  We struggle with how a loving God can give holy heat.  It helps to remember that he is also patient and slow to anger (Ps 103:8, Joel 2:13).  He gives sinners many opportunities to repent.  His love actually postpones his wrath…like how I warn my children about their behavior before disciplining them.

We need to remember that Hell is real.  It’s the ultimate place where God’s wrath will be unleashed and fully experienced forever.  Those who do not repent and trust in Christ “will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might (2 Thess. 1:9).  This brings us back to his righteousness.  The loving part of righteousness will forgive all when a sinner repents, yet this righteousness also calls for a just punishment for those who do not repent.  This is made clear at the cross.  Where Christ sacrificed himself to pay the wrath of God sinners deserve thereby satisfying the just portion of righteousness.  He did this out of love for the Father which is the loving part of his righteousness.  This proves that if there is no wrath against sin, there can be no righteous love. John 3:16 explains this best, “For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life.”  What this means is there is a way to escape the wrath of God in hell – through the cross of Christ!  There is hope for my kids and there is hope for you if you have not trusted him.

And for those of us who have placed their trust in Christ, it is true that there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Rom 8:1), but that does not allow us to openly sin or rebel against God.  We no longer have to fear the wrath of hell, but He will discipline us when we do not live a righteous life out of our gratefulness and love for Christ.  We would do well to escape this judgement by looking daily to Christ.  We need to run our race with fellow believers who will encourage us on this lifelong journey (Heb. 10:25, Phil 3:14).

We teach our kids how their sins deserve the wrath and curse of God because we love them.  They need to know that hell is real…that his holy heat will come.  They need to not want that.  We want them to see their need for a Savior…THE Savior.  That Christ satisfied God’s justice by his suffering and death as a substitute for sinners of which they are.  He took God’s wrath and curse for them.  Then we beg them to trust Christ.  And then we tell ourselves the same thing, we deserved that wrath but Christ took it for us.  How can we not live out of a thankful heart full of love for this God who gave His only son to take our wrath out of His love for us?  Sweet sister, trust him afresh!

Yours In Christ,

Colleen

 

 

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God’s Holy Heat

Dear Sister,

We know the analogy. The refiner’s fire. Precious metals undergoing intense heat in order to remove impurities resulting in glimmering gold and silver readied for the artisan’s creative mind and hand—And God’s ramping up of trials in our lives in order to surface besetting, even egregious sins, in order to elicit repentance and bring forth the purity of Jesus in our souls and behavior.

Which one of us Christ-redeemed sisters has not felt the singeing, the distress, the anguish of our Father’s furnace? The pain is often excruciating—especially when the refiner must make the fire hotter. The initial temperature did not remove the dross.

Those of us who have birthed little ones know the agony of labor and delivery and the sweet reward of the child laid on our breast. God wants that for us in the fires of refinement. He desires that the pain in the trials and the outcome of holiness be sweet to our remembrance and taste.

Is it enjoyable in the fire? Obviously not. Do we love the travails of infertility, losing little ones, wayward children, betrayal, cancer, lupus, accidents, death, the agony of our babies born with special needs and medical equipment displacing all the pretties in the room? Those are the big ones. What about the daily scrapes and bruises, disappointments, unmet expectations, anxieties, frustrations, elusive peace? Do you often feel like the sons of Korah in Psalm 88, lamenting God’s seeming abandonment?

Do we truly believe all things are working for our good? Are we being conformed to the image of Christ in patience and purity and holiness? (Romans 8:28-29) God tells us that the peaceable fruit of righteousness is the yield for those who are trained in life’s painful trials. (Hebrews 12:11) Are we indeed being trained or are we chafing and rebelling under the yoke of the One who is gentle and humble in heart and promises rest for our souls? (Matthew 11:29) Do we trust that discipline proves we belong to the Master and we are not illegitimate? (Hebrews 12:8) Can we honestly say, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I shall return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised”, when our undesirable situation never changes? (Job 1:21)

Do we toe the line because we love our Savior’s face and groan at disappointing Him or simply because we are afraid of punishment? Or do we not care all that much and rely on distorted meanings of mercy and grace, not comprehending that these two can be severe in order to bring us to Himself in struggling or glad submission.

In the gifting, yes, gifting of trials in life, do we give thanks, obeying His admonition to be grateful in all things which is His will for us? (1 Thessalonians 5:18) Do we rejoice in difficulties because of the glorious fruit they produce in us? Do we find evidences of His holy attributes when our emotions are bent low with the weight of the present burden?  Can we say, “He is the Always Good” even when we do not understand?  Or do we grumble and complain, thrusting our fists at God, telling Him He does not know what He is doing?

Dearest Sister, let us ask ourselves these questions and ask the Lord of all to give grace to answer these queries according to biblical principles, with bare and honest hearts. Let us reckon His holy heat as good because He is good—always good. Embrace the emotions of pain and grief because they are real, but bring these under the authority of Christ. Bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. (2 Corinthians 10:5)

Bear in mind:  All trials are ordained through His loving hands; all trials are His discipline/teaching in the school of becoming like Christ; our sufferings will not always resolve in relief on this earth; some trials are actual chastening for sin. It is not for me to figure that out in your life, dear Sister, only in mine. Whatever our conclusions about the why of a difficulty, one thing is certain: All is for our good and for His glory.

“Count it all joy, my sisters, when [not if] you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” James 1:2-4

I’m so grateful for His preserving love and His holy, refining heat in my own life, preparing me for the perfections of my heavenly home, causing me to love the Savior more deeply and yearn to see Him face-to-face when trials will cease and I will truly be like Him forevermore. Oh, yes, I still grumble. I still question. I resist thankfulness. Rejoicing is not my first go-to.   But these times are shorter in duration and always end in repentance. That’s an advantage of aging physically and in the Lord, by His grace alone.

“Be strong, and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the Lord!” (Psalm 31:24)

“Though He slay me, I will hope in Him…” (Job 13:15a)

Enjoy this song by Shane and Shane and let the truths of its words sink deeply into your heart.  http://Though You Slay Me

With love,

Cherry