new beginnings

The other day I heard a terrible racket. In seeking to find its source, I came across a man using an electric saw to cut a piece of pressure treated lumber. He was in the process of repairing a lamp post I'd seen toppled in the parking lot several days earlier. "Somebody back into it?" I asked. "Nope," he said. "Just fell over." And after a pause added, "Rotted clean through", and nodded his head in the direction of a piece of wood on the ground.

I looked down at the post. He was absolutely correct, it had rotted off right at ground level. "Look at that," he said as he gestured toward another post beside the first. I Looked. It appeared to be a piece of another post- good wood, nicely painted.

"Turn it over," he suggested. And when I did, it revealed a totally different appearance. Its interior had been eaten out by termites. When I touched the wood it broke apart like Styrofoam. "You'd never know it by the outward appearance," the man continued, "but every one of them posts is in the same condition," as he pointed toward the eight or ten other lamp posts in the parking lot.

I couldn't help but think how many churches and Christians are like those lamp posts. On the outside there's every appearance of health and stability, yet the inside core has become diseased, fragile, and broken. And while our first thought is to just slap another coat of paint on the outside and keep on going, what we really need most is to allow God to cut out the part of us that has died, strip us down to the good, bare wood, and rebuild us from the inside out.

In every life… in every church… there comes a time to set the old aside and to start afresh. There comes a time to receive a fresh breath from the Spirit. There comes a time to intentionally and willingly open ourself completely to God's sovereign work in our life. There comes a time for new beginnings…

Isaiah 43:18-19 NASU

"Do not call to mind the former things, or ponder things of the past. Behold, I will do something new, now it will spring forth; will you not be aware of it? I will even make a roadway in the wilderness, rivers in the desert."