Finding a "new way"

Well, it is almost a new year.  And as we approach the New Year many of us think about change.  We think about our lives, about how things have been, how we want them to be, and we make plans to improve our lives, improve ourselves…..Thus those things we call New Years resolutions!

Stephen, version 60.2

This Stephen will not wear his good clothes to mow the lawn or feed the horses

This Stephen will not use half a cube of butter on one piece of toast

This Stephen comes to complete stops at empty intersections and always matches his socks as soon as they come out of the dryer. The "improved Stephen" sounds like quite a guy!

In short, we want to change.  But its not that easy…

The Tibetian “Book of Living and Dying” has this little progression

1) I walk down the street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.  I fall in.  I am lost … I am hopeless.

It isn’t my fault.  It takes forever to find a way out.

2) I walk down the same street.

There is a hole in the sidewalk. I pretend I don’t see it. I fall in again.

I can’t believe I am in the same place.

But it isn’t my fault.  It still takes a long time to get out.

3) I walk down the same street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I see it there. I still fall in … it’s a habit

My eyes are open.  I know where I am

It is my fault.  I get out immediately

4) I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk

I walk around it. 

5) I walk down another street.

We all know how hard it is to change.  That is why NY resolutions are such a joke

That new way, that new street sounds really good.  But the reality is that the new street, the new way is nothing if not elusive.

And a lot of the time, as we think about meaningful change, we feel at least a little hopeless.

But I want us to focus on that amazing passage from Isaiah 43.

 "Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.

 See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?

 I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.

When I read this passage I always think the Oregon desert, where I grew up.

Dry.  Big. Empty.  And amazingly twisted.  No matter where you are, you can’t get to the next place, not easily.  There are deep canyons, cliffs.  Dead ends everywhere.  Roads that just come to a sad end.  And Rocks.  Big rocks.  Lots of rocks, everywhere!!  Even with a map you start out, and find that your way is blocked.

But imagine God coming… Bringing the construction crew.  A huge caterpillar. Paving equipment…..

And suddenly there is a way in the desert.  God levels the high places, and fills in the low places.  And suddenly there is a freeway… and way in the desert.

In fact earlier in Isaiah, just a few chapters earlier, in chapter 40 we get almost that exact image… Isaiah 40:3-4: "In the desert prepare the way for the Lord;  make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God.   Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain.

Think about it.  This is what God does.  He makes newness possible

He makes it possible for us to talk those old patterns, and change them

To take the old ways of thinking, and transform them

The old behaviors, and change them

He enables us to take the old person, and make that person new.

Like that image?  But wait, there is more… into the dryness he brings springs of water.  The brown becomes green.  The dead earth comes alive.  God only helps us find a new path, but his makes that path richer, more full of life than it ever was before.

Wow.  What a metaphor for what God can do in our lives…

In short, what God can do is help us move toward the thing we are all really seeking

God can help us move toward being the person we were created to be…

Now I know in fact it is not easy. We seem to have trouble grabbing hold of what God can do in our lives.  Thus God has to implore the people through Isaiah.  I am about to do a new thing:  now it springs forth, do you not see it?  Do you not see it?  So how do we get there?

Often the reason we have so much trouble is because our eyes are in the wrong place.  They are on our culture, which has a lot to say to us about who we are, what is right, what is wrong.  Our eyes are on other people.  Our parents, our peers, our significant others, who have a lot to say about who we are, what is right, and what is wrong.  Who all too often are more than happy to define us.  And perhaps even control us.  Our eyes are on our lives, the world around us.  On the economy.  On our jobs. Our calendars… and more.  They are on the things, “out there” that we would change.

But we grab hold of God’s new thing not by focusing on externals, but by going inside.

First we turn inside to find that inner power God has promised us.  In Colossians Paul writes, “the secret is this, Christ in us…”   God is in us.  In the person of Christ.  More specifically in the person of the Spirit.  That is the gift Christ promised his disciples in the upper room.  God is in us as the advocate, the Spirit of truth, as the one who is there to teach us “everything”, as Jesus put it.

We need to turn inside and meet God.  Listen to God. We need that connection.  WE need to hear God’s Iove you.  We need to feel that love.  Accept that love.   One writer puts it this way:  "When a person finally accepts the profound mystery that she is totally loved by God and there's nothing she can do about that, then she has a fighting chance at embracing her core identity as Abba's Child.  And then she slowly gains emancipation from all those controlling relationships.  She shifts what psychologist Julian Rotter called the locus of control - the place where decisions about change are made - from external control to internal self-control." 

That quote leads me to the second thing that we have to do.  Find our true self.  And in the context of that sacred presence, in the context of that amazing love, we can do just that.

Now this is where is gets kind of interesting..Because I think we often have no idea what our true self is….We have our outer self… which is the self we present to the world, that external self we put forward to those around us.  Most of us realize this outer self is rarely our true self…..

And we have our inner self, our true self

But our problem is this

What we THINK is our true self is not our true self

Because the inner self we see is another false self.

We see ourselves with our faults.  Our mistakes. 

We see all the stuff we don’t like, the stuff we hide.

And we THINK that is our true self.  This self that is often not enough, that self that is bad, that self that is full of fear, and guilt, and anger.

But that is not our true self

Our true self is our “created to be self.”  Or the self the one author calls “Abba’s Child”

Rob Bell talks about how we have our version of our story, and God has His version of his story.

He uses the story of the prodigal son to illustrate this.  The prodigal thought, that his true self was not worthy to be called a child of God.  That his true self was a loser.  One who could only be on the fringes of the Father’s family…. As a slave.    But look at the prodigal and his version of the prodigals TRUE self was reflected in these words… You are my beloved son”  Abba’s child!

What we think is the true self is really the self-created by the world.  By all the wounds, and pressures and influences that have assailed us from the day of our birth.   Our true self is the self that God sees when God looks at us.  The amazing child God sees.  A child with amazing value.  A child with potential.  A child that deserves respect.  A child who can grab hold of God’s new thing

And can become new

And strong

And… amazing!!!

So this year, as we move forward we need to resolve only two things

First, to turn inward, and seek that spark of God that is inside each of us,  that “Christ in us”

And to connect with the sacred within

And second, in the context of God’s love.  God’s forgiveness.  God’s acceptance

Begin to discover that amazing person we were created to be.

Will there be an instant transformation?  Probably not

Will we continue to struggle?  Of course

Will we make mistakes.  Undoubtably

Back in the early days of English history a Saxon missionary was asked by a Anglo King.  “What should I expect if I accept your message?”  The missionary answered.  If you accept, you will stumble on from wonder to wonder, and every wonder will be true.

We may well stumble. We will stumble. But as we keep going deep

And connecting with God

And letting God define us, and show us our true self…

We will move forward

We will grow

We will get stronger

We will find new paths, new ways of thinking, and thus behaving and being

And God’s new thing will spring forth..