New Life

Each Day          G. S. KohlerI never stand aloneThere is nothing I needYou give me rest and peaceYou still my anxious heartYou lead me to justiceBecause it reveals your loveWhen the darkness grows thickWhen I can’t see or standYou open up my eyesThat were tightly shutAnd you show me a newDay, a new chance and hopeYou never leave me alone

It’s not the future that God knows and holds.  It’s the possibilities.  God knows and understands the implications of every possible choice and movement.  God doesn’t need a plan or a design of the future, the way we do. God doesn’t need the kind of control that gives us security.  God considers every aspect of life and knows how it will play out.  He shapes the future instead of delivering it.

Consider how God uses the mess of our lives. When we see that pieces of ourselves or our experiences, that we thought were useless and to be forgotten, are shaped into beauty, usefulness and growth, we get an insight into how God doesn’t need a plan.  God uses what’s in front of him, regardless of how it appears to us.

Ancient theologians spoke of the “foreknowledge” of God, which is understandable, because none of us can see the future and God has no worries about the future.  So, he must know what it includes.  Therefore, we can blame God when terrible things happen.  If he knew this was going to happen, why did he allow it? If he can do miracles, why didn’t he change it?  If God loves us, why would this be part of his plan?

We hold God responsible for “giving and taking away” without realizing that’s just the nature of life. God created everything and it all was made to interwork with everything else in the universe.  The violence, trauma and tragedy we experience in life has come because the world, everyone and everything, is disconnected from God.  When Jesus died on the cross, he wasn’t paying God back for sins or paying the Devil off to let us go.  Jesus was God’s intervention to clear away everything that separates us from God.  So…we know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Romans 8:22

Everything, including ourselves, is being put right through the life, teaching, death and resurrection of Jesus.  It wasn’t just to save our souls or get us into heaven.  Jesus brings everything back into the light of God.  Through the work of Jesus, God is moving life into what he desires it to be.  And we get to join God in that.  The Resurrection is the open door for everything to rejoin God.

Prayer: Living Lord, heal my soul with the ointment of your grace.  Comfort my soul.  Teach it the depth of your love and how close we are, you and me.  Give me your peace so that I can turn to you and not away when I don’t understand why or what is happening.  Lead me through the Resurrection into the new life so that I can create the new future with you and with all the resources you give me each day. Amen.

Read this Scripture today. Then read it each day, three times, between now and Sunday, and then celebrate with a meal with others.

John 20:1-20