Something About Newness

The back to school aisles are picked over.
The school supplies are dwindling down.
The shelves that were well stocked just weeks before are beginning to look empty.
These same shelves will hold Christmas decorations very soon.

Don’t you love New York in the fall?
It makes me wanna buy school supplies.
I would send you a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils…
So says the fictional character, Kathleen Kelly.

Everything is new.
Nothing is wrinkled.
Nothing is dirty.
Nothing is used, yet.

The whole school year is before you.
No mistakes.
No missed assignments.
No forgotten homework.

A clean slate.

Don’t you just love new sneakers?
Crisp and clean.
Never worn.
The inner sole is nice and cushy.

How about a freshly paved road?
Smooth with no tread marks.
Especially before the lines are painted along the sides and in the center.
There is something so thrilling about being the first to drive on it or to walk on it.

Newly fallen snow has the same effect.
No footprints.
No animal tracks.
No small indentations from the drops of melting icicles that fall from the trees.

New.
Pristine.
Clean.
Pure.

Unfortunately, it can’t stay that way forever.
Pencils need to be used.
Sneakers need to be worn.
Roads need to be driven on or walked across.

Wear and tear.
Expected.
Necessary.
Still there is something about newness that calls to something in our spirit.

A new car, if you are fortunate to drive one off the lot, before the first ding.
A new house that has the somewhat lonely smell of no one living in it yet.
A freshly scooped ice cream cone before the first lick.
A just-washed window prior to the first hand print.

There is something inside us that enjoys that feeling of newness.
The uncharted wilderness that is waiting for us to leave our mark.
New and fresh and waiting for us.
The way it was meant to be.

My daughter is a second grade teacher.
She has a marvelous system of classroom management, which uses a traffic light.
Children begin their day on green.
If a classroom rule has been broken and a warning given, the child moves to yellow.

If, on those rare occasions the behavior persists, the child moves to red.
A note is sent home to the parent and the principal may be involved as well.
Most days the children remain on green, but occasionally movement to yellow will happen.
A box of colored gems is in the back of the room, which a child on green may select.

If you move to yellow or red, no gem is acquired that day.
That is enough motivation for the child to want to do better tomorrow.
In fact that is the effectiveness of the system.
Newness.

Every child moves back to green the following day.
The transgression has been dealt with.
The consequence was given.
It is a new day, my daughter will tell her class.

And it is.
And that is biblical.
That is how God deals with us.
Such promise; such hope.

I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for Him.” The Lord is good to those whose hope is in Him, to the one who seeks Him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. (Lamentations 3:19-26)

New every morning.
Great is Your faithfulness.
A promise on which to hang your hat.
A promise on which you go into eternity.

How wonderful to start each day, new.
Just like the children in my daughter’s class, we all begin our day on green.
We are not perfect, we sin, we hurt others with our words and actions.
We hurt God.

Our sin breaks fellowship with Him.
The Creator, the Lord God Almighty, desires fellowship with us.
The question, where are you? that was asked of Adam and Eve can be asked of us.
Where are you? Why have you broken fellowship with Me?

God is omniscient.
God knows where we are.
God knows what we did.
Like any child, we need to confess in order to move on.

Sweeping our sin under the rug just makes a large pile that we have to walk around.
Trying to cover up our sin does nothing for our healing and our redemption.
We must clear away that debris that we have tried to hide under the rug.
We desire newness, wholeness, and restoration.

Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!
(2 Corinthians 5:17)

In Christ we are made new.
Perhaps that is why there is something about newness that calls to something in our spirit.
We want to be made new.
We know that we are sinners, we also know there is nothing we can do on our own to fix it.

Our Bible is the only thing that should not look new.
Our Bible should be worn and smudged and actually falling apart.
A Bible that’s falling apart usually belongs to someone who isn’t. (Charles Spurgeon)
Without reading God’s word, how will we know the way to be saved?

We need to know that we need to be made new.
We need to know that we need a Savior.
We need to know Jesus, the Son of God who died for our sins and rose again.
We need to believe that without Jesus we can never be on green and start each day, new.

Come to Jesus to be renewed.
There is something about newness that calls to your spirit.
No more hiding, or sweeping, or doing it on your own.
Be made new in Him today.