I was struck this weekend by a phrase Ps Phil shared during a message (You can check out the message he shared at Activate HERE). The message itself was about seeing what Jesus sees. My gold nugget in the message, or at least one of them, was that new life is coming!
We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. Romans 6:4 (ESV)
There are more than a few instances in the Bible where the passage of three days is shared with us. Ps Phil shared how the wedding in Galilee was three days after the Sabbath (as per John 2) and how the passage of time paralleled the death and resurrection of Christ, add to that the additional parallel of the baptism we take when we make the decision to follow Christ and new life is everywhere.
Some days life feels impossible and painful, as though the world and everyone in it are pitted against us. Granted our experiences are unlikely to be anything like what Jesus went through, but that doesn’t mean that the things we do go through aren’t hard.
The journey that Jesus endured reveals to me that even when placed in a position where we are experiencing the worst pain imaginable, when the people in power and the community at large have not only abandoned us, but are actively seeking our destruction, and the people who love us have no ability or power to help us. Even when life and hope appear to be over and the only thing that remains is grief, we can have hope that new life is coming, because Jesus not only modelled it, but promised it to us.
When we consider what life looks like when a child comes into our world, there are a few things that appear to be universally true.
A newborn relies on their parents to feed, clothe, protect, and educate them, there isn’t even a consideration from the newborn of doing those things themselves. In the same way, when new life begins for us, or even when a new season begins, I want to suggest that we should stop striving to meet our needs, and instead trust God to provide them.
I recognise this is hard, it may even feel impossible, and yet I want to challenge each of us, myself included, to approach Jesus as someone new to life.
Like a newborn I want you to cry out in prayer when you need to be fed. Cry out when you are lonely or scared and need attention. Cry out when the environment you are in is making you uncomfortable. Cry out when you’ve got yourself into a messy situation and you need God to clean you up.
I want our first instinct in this new life to be calling out to our Father, and I want us to do it with the unshakeable confidence of a newborn, that if we continue to call out He will perfectly meet our need.
As Christ followers every day is new and fresh, full of opportunities to inch closer to God and His purpose for our lives. As children of God, the perfect father, I know He will hear our cries, do what every good parent does, and see to the needs of His child, that means you.
New life is coming, it may already be here. So cry out and trust that your good father has you.
Karla