Do you remember the days when you stayed up late at night watching TV and there came the point when the TV went blank? No more broadcasting; just a black and white fuzzy screen emitting an annoying static noise. The sight and sound of nothing… nothing next…. nothing new.
Can’t life feel just like that static TV at times?
Life get tiresome and routine- we feel as though there is nothing new to come.
Life becomes hard and feels endless with little hope of something better or new for our future.
I wonder- is there anything in all of creation that is genuinely new?
Is it possible to have new thoughts, responses, mindset, and vision?
Is it possible to have a new start, wiping away the past and having something genuinely new?
Historically, some of the world’s greatest thinkers have concluded that nothing is genuinely new under the sun, that humanity just repeats history and recycles thoughts and actions.
I tend to agree with them in one respect; nothing is new or possible with mere humans because we look at the world purely through our own eyes and limitations.
It is when we begin with God, that we can understand that genuinely new is possible.
Eugene H. Peterson in Run with the Horses: The Quest for Life at Its Best, clarifies this idea:
“Before Jeremiah knew God, God knew Jeremiah: “Before I shaped you in the womb, I knew all about you.” This turns everything we ever thought about God around. We think that God is an object about which we have questions. We are curious about God. We make inquiries about God. We read books about God. We get into late-night bull sessions about God. We drop into church from time to time to see what is going on with God. We indulge in an occasional sunset or symphony to cultivate a feeling of reverence for God. But that is not the reality of our lives with God. Long before we ever got around to asking questions about God, God had been questioning us. Long before we got interested in the subject of God, God subjected us to the most intensive and searching knowledge. Before it ever crossed our minds that God might be important, God singled us out as important. Before we were formed in the womb, God knew us. We are known before we know. This realization has a practical result: no longer do we run here and there, panicked and anxious, searching for the answers to life. Our lives are not puzzles to be figured out. Rather, we come to God, who knows us and reveals to us the truth of our lives. The fundamental mistake is to begin with ourselves and not God. God is the center from which all life develops. If we use our ego as the center from which to plot the geometry of our lives, we will live eccentrically.”
God is the center from which all life develops- God is the center of the new.
The maker of miracles, the creator of the universe, the creator of each day, the creator of all life is more than capable of creating something new in your life!
The question is what “new” do you need?
A fresh start.
A renewed marriage.
A new way of seeing life- a new perspective.
A fresh mindset.
A better habit.
A new career.
Consider- Life doesn’t have to be like the static TV, fuzzy with no hope for better broadcasting, because absolutely anything is possible with God- even creating something genuinely new in your life!
Thank you, Father, that you have known us before we were known. That you are the center of life and with you all things are possible. You are not limited by the confines of this world. You love us with unfailing love that compels you to be mindful and gracious to us. When we come to you truth is revealed, and new things are possible.
“Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.” ~ Corinthians 5:17