because life as we know it will always be ending
It feels needless to say again, but still I will, that I do not write about politics, but that doesn’t mean that something said in the political realm can’t spark an idea that navigates its way through my mind to an issue at the heart. If we stop to think about it, that scenario makes perfect sense, because what God is after is our hearts. “My son,” Solomon writes in Proverbs 23:26, “give me your heart and let your eyes delight in my ways.” If our hearts are what He wants, He will use what He has created on earth to get our attention. Books, movies, music, nature, friends, conversations, experiences, any and all of it can create a spark that navigates our minds to an issue that lies within our hearts. How? Well, Jesus. “May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ.” 2 Thessalonians 3:5.
Jesus, if we have submitted ourselves to Him, laid our life with his, has gifted us His Spirit and with that gift comes a Guide who takes us to the love of God. There may be only one way to eternal life, burying our life with Christ’s, but there are various ways God leads us to him, because of His great love for us He works within our passions, our interests, our disagreements, our everything to show Himself.
Many things can start a rabbit trail that you cannot help but follow. This time, it was a quote and a conversation…
Recently, David French posted on Twitter in light of recent events, “If you argue that the very existence of the country is at stake, don’t be surprised if people start to act as if the very existence of the country is at stake.” In less sophisticated speech, He’s saying, ya’ll been yelling that the world’s gonna end if _______ happens, and now it’s happened so people are acting like the world’s gonna end. I understand his meaning, and agree with it if you want to know the truth, but it was another thought that came up in the conversation that came after that grabbed my attention. A meaning that lives deep within hearts driving actions in panicky and sometimes reprehensible ways, fear, fear of different, fear of change, fear of life as it is known, ending. Though there are in existence some rebels who love the unfamiliar, love mixing it up, thrive in spontaneity, even the most spontaneous person needs a bit of consistency and the rest of us pretty much just want life to stay the same.
But, and it’s a really big but, life will NEVER be the same. Life as I know it will end, life as I know it will always be ending, and praise be to God for it.
You see, when I was born, life as I knew it ended. When I got married, life as I knew it ended. When my first precious boy, and each of the following equally precious ones, were born, life as I knew it ended. When my husband confessed to being unfaithful, life as I knew it ended. When I stared into his eyes and renewed my vows for forever, life as I knew it ended. When my oldest son starts high school next year, when the last one moves off to college, when I hold my first grandchild in my arms, when I close my eyes to the earth and wake up in the presence of my Creator, life as I knew it will have ended. At the end of every day, whether full of love and joy or full of heartbreak and tears, life as I know it ends. And I praise Jesus for it, because it is only when one thing ends that a new thing can begin.
In Christ we are a NEW creation, the old is gone, the NEW has come. 2 Corinthians 5:17
Remember not the former things, I am doing a NEW thing. Isaiah 43:19
His mercies are NEW every morning. Lamentations 3:22-24
I am making all things NEW. Revelation 21:5
Whether you disagree with the world, or whether the world disagrees with you, life, on a daily basis will change. Some changes will be for the better, some will be for the worse, some will be for both depending upon the side of the line in which you stand. Some will break your heart, some will fill it to overflowing, some will do both simultaneously so that tears of joy and sadness mix it a beautiful combination of love and grief. We will go to sleep each night and wake up each morning with life as we know it ending, because we are being made new, we are being renewed. That’s the reason this blog even exists, that was the first message I ever wanted to share, the ever changing aspect of our inner dispositions to be made more like Christ’s, to being made new. So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. 2 Corinthians 4:16.
I’m gonna throw it out to R.E.M for giving me words that I can share with a whole heart, “Its the end of the world as we know it. and I feel fine.” Because honestly, I, like John Mayer, am waiting on the world to change, because I know it always will in just the same fashion that I know my God never will.
I’m praying for you friend, praying for you to see all the hard and lovely ways life as you know it will always be ending, and how with every ending newness comes. Pray for me.
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