When the NEW is in and the OLD is out
We have tendency to seek and proclaim the ‘new’. We love the ‘new’ for many reasons: we can press delete on the old unresolved (pressing it on old resolved is fine), we can get excited about the unknown rather than to deal with the known. The ‘new’ is in, the ‘old’ is out.
When we just want to fall on the next without dealing with the now, then we might end up deceiving our own heart. The ‘new’ always starts with receiving the Spirit working in the ‘now’. And ‘here’. And ‘in the midst’. Removing the mental torments, turning toward the truth, repairing the wrongs, forgiving offenders.
We look for ‘new’ because our eyes are not satisfied with seeing neither our ears with hearing. We expect the new to work better, quicker, and with less pain. The excitement wears off quickly after the ‘new’ becomes ‘old’.
I love singing ‘you make all things new’. Something shifts inside of me when I sing it. I try to give God an access to all things, big and small, so He can make it new, meaning refreshed through His eyes, cleansed by His cross, awakened in His resurrection. All things that are not made new = alive, I try to allow to die. All shadows and caricatures of true things. All unnecessary things. Sometimes He allows me to taste that state of being alive, new, renewed, for few moments.
ECCL 1:2-11
Vanity of vanities, says Qoheleth,
vanity of vanities! All things are vanity!
What profit has man from all the labor
which he toils at under the sun?
One generation passes and another comes,
but the world forever stays.
The sun rises and the sun goes down;
then it presses on to the place where it rises.
Blowing now toward the south, then toward the north,
the wind turns again and again, resuming its rounds.
All rivers go to the sea,
yet never does the sea become full.
To the place where they go,
the rivers keep on going.
All speech is labored;
there is nothing one can say.
The eye is not satisfied with seeing
nor is the ear satisfied with hearing.
What has been, that will be;
what has been done, that will be done.
Nothing is new under the sun.
Even the thing of which we say, “See, this is new!”
has already existed in the ages that preceded us.
There is no remembrance of the men of old;
nor of those to come will there be any remembrance among those who come after them.”