Day 30  Behold all Things are New

Wednesday August 22

Have you ever had one thing you really set your heart on as a kid – one thing you wanted more than anything – but never got? Maybe it was a new bike or the newest Barbie with all her fashion accessories.  You dreamed, you hoped, you dropped hints to your parents, you wrote letters to Santa – but somehow that toy just never materialized.

For one of our friends it was a Betty Crocker easy bake oven. She was 8 and she wanted one.  Badly. It’s all she could think about – how she could bake cookies and little cakes, just like her mom.  She pestered her parents incessantly.  But her mother, ever the pragmatist, made it clear – “You are not getting an Easy Bake oven so you can burn the house down”.  Period. End of story. Her first taste of the bitter pill of hope deferred.

But certainly not her last.  Like for many of us her life didn’t quite go as she planned.  And she found herself one Christmas Eve night, overwhelmed with sadness and discouragement pouring out her heart to God.

“God I know I can’t ask you to turn back time, but all these disappointments and wounds have built this castle of fear in my heart and the real me is locked inside.  I’m afraid to trust, afraid to hope, afraid to believe.  

God you’re a big God and I know you love me.  Couldn’t you just take me back to how I was when I was 8 years old again?  Couldn’t that be my Christmas present from You?

She woke up the next morning and… well… nothing. She didn’t feel any different.  “Oh well, what did you expect?”  “That was such a silly idea!”  The little voice in her head chastised her soundly as she drove to her parents for the traditional Christmas morning gift opening.    A pile of socks, sweaters, books, DVDs and gift certificates later we were done.  Or almost.

“You forgot one”, her mom said to her.

“What?”

 

“That one, under the tree – from Santa.”

“Mom, I’m 30 years old”. 

“I know, I know, just open it”.

She picked up the present and read the tag.  It was signed “From Santa.  Sorry it’s so late”.

Her heart started pounding.  She stared at her mom.

“I know,” she said, not at all aware of what was happening.  “You’ll probably think it’s silly. But I was reading the flyer one morning and I saw this was on for half price.  And the strangest thing happened.  I felt like God spoke to me, and said “You need to buy that for your daughter”.  And I thought “That’s ridiculous. She’s a grown woman”.  And so I tried to ignore it.  A few weeks later, dad and I were shopping and we happened to go buy the toy section in the store – and there it was. Only this time it wasn’t on sale.  And then that voice started again – only much more insistently this time. “You HAVE to buy that for your daughter”.  So, I bought it.  If only I would have listened the first time, think of the money I could have saved….”

She didn’t hear anything else her mother said.  With her hands trembling, she pulled away the paper to reveal the coveted Easy Bake oven.  As the tears ran down her face, her eyes wandered to the label in the corner of the box: ages 8 and up.

People were bringing little children to Jesus to have him touch them, but the disciples rebuked them.  When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.  I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it." Mark 10:13-15

There is something deep the Lord wants to do in our hearts during this consecration call to prepare us for the establishment of His kingdom:  He wants to restore our innocence.  He wants to take us back before the defilement of wounds that stole from us that childlike heart that just trusted with no fear. 

But how could such a thing even be possible?

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. Ezekiel 36:26

It is possible.  Who among us at one time or another hasn’t wished we could just run away to a new place with a new identity and start all over?  Well the good news is we can!  But we don’t have to run alone – we can allow the Lord to carry us away. Like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz,   He wants to sweep us up in the wind of his love and set you down in a place far away from all the pain and the hurt.  A place where “behold all things are new”. 

"Do not remember the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth; shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.  Isaiah 43:18-19

Then He who sat on the throne said, "Behold, I make all things new." Revelation 21:5

In the movie The Passion of the Christ by Mel Gibson, there is a scene where Jesus is carrying the Cross through the crowded streets after being beaten almost beyond recognition. Jesus' mother, Mary, sees Him pass by, and she is absolutely devastated. Just then Jesus falls down under the weight of the Cross and as He does, her thoughts race back to a time when He was a small child and He fell down.  She ran to pick Him up and held and comforted Him.  As the memory ends, she is on her feet, running to Jesus as He lays beneath the Cross.  As she grabs hold of Him, Jesus looks at her through His blood and pain and says, "See Mother, I make all things new."  (Watch this scene – High Speed  Low Speed).

Although there is no Biblical account for this happening, God can use the creativity of those who wrote it to speak a deep message into our hearts – that in the most hopeless and devastating moments, there is hope, life, redemption. 

It really is a new day.  We are about to enter the Promised Land where all things are new:  we have never been this way before.  And that’s why the Lord wants to remove the shame and reproach of the past, to break the fear and give us new hearts.  He wants to restore our innocence and make us like little kids again who just trust without questioning in the bigness of their Daddy.

For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father." The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children. Romans 8:15-16

You can believe again.  You can hope again. You can embrace the eternal destiny that He has placed in your heart.  You can run, you can soar, you can be who you were always meant to be.   Just run like a little child and throw yourself wholeheartedly into His arms and let Him take you to the place where behold all things are new!

Let’s pray this prayer together.  God I know that you are the God who makes all things new.  I trust you Lord to take the places where through disappointments my heart has become hard as stone and you can make it a heart of flesh again.  God I want to be like a little child again – restore to me my innocence God and the simple childlike faith that I once had.  In Jesus name I pray, Amen!