It's a New Year...Or Is It?

[HKHaugan]

“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 wilderness and streams in the wasteland (Is.43:18-20 NIV).”
Remember this expression, “You can't see the forest for trees?” Well that's got to be applied to our preoccupation with time. We get bent out of shape by the concept that 'oh, oh, another year has past and a new one is here.' This means “time marches on” and we're trapped in the cycle of physical life and death as the Broadway New Year's ball drops to signal we're farther from one and closer to the other. Then TV, local parties and the refrains of Auld Lang Syne cloud us with memories and the need to absolve ourselves with some convenient anesthetic, resolutions to do better and watch our secular numbers increase. Some will wake up with a hangover from each.
The years, the numbers and the wear and tear of aging are the trees we become absorbed in and the forest of our eternal reality in God is lost. Instead of being a Martha perhaps we need to retrace our spiritual heritage and be a Mary who sees this life as a daily awareness of being an ongoing disciple of Jesus. It is at His feet we sit, with Him we walk and by whose Spirit we are already living in eternity where there is no New Year but an ever living present where He reigns. He is not only the forest, He is the vision that makes the trees, each one, spectacular.
That's what Isaiah caught from the Spirit when he was led to say “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.” The 'former things' like wishing for 'the way things used to be' and the nostalgic fondness for things of yesteryear. Then it might be the 'former things' that seem overwhelming that tend to drag us away from our consciousness of the presence of the Lord. You know the feeling of “If I hadn't done that,” “If I hadn't said that,” “If only I could make up for this or that.” Then there's always that lingering thought “I could have been a better person.” “If I had to do it all over again...” Those former things get us to dwell on the past. Another whole set of former things include resentments, regrets, remorse, guilts, unfulfilled dreams and wishes, the 'what-could-have-been's.' You can add to these I'm sure. But, as Isaiah said, “Do not dwell on the past.”
He was not the only one who said that. Paul was quick to say the same thing to the Philippians, “Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on...(Php.3:13).” This is why Isaiah's next comment gives us the prophetic propulsion to see the forest of possibility, “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?” If we get stuck in the tree stumps of the past, which is what those former things were, then we are in a wilderness and wasteland of dead limbs and branches, “in a dry and thirsty land where no water is (Ps.63:1).”
Suppose, just suppose, we are the new thing that Isaiah is talking about? Suppose being born again by the Spirit makes us, brings us, carries us new into every next moment? Suppose we are seedlings in a forest called the Body of Christ and growing in expectancy of the realization that we are bringing the eternal forest of the Kingdom of God into this world? Now what do you see? Every next moment is not a reminiscent rambling but a springing of roots into the spiritual soil of an eternal reality. In Christ we are that something new, a new tree growing bit by bit. The fertilizer is the Holy Spirit getting us to see everything in a spiritual perspective. Everything has spiritual reality written on it. Every person you meet, believer or unbeliever, is a spiritual being, an image of God with whom the truth of Jesus can be shared. For both believer and non-believer “we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing (2nd Cor.2:15).”
If we are that 'new thing' in Jesus, a seedling having been planted for the forest to come into its full beauty consider how Paul addresses that. “”Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus (Php.3:13-14).” The goal is not only our personal growth in our relationship with the Lord but the growth in our relationship with those in the Body and those outside the Body who are seeds awaiting fertilization. We are trees in a forest of trees, eternal trees in an eternal forest where the glory of God makes both the tree and the forest glorious because He is the life of the forest and the individual trees.
If we can begin to see everything in this eternal spiritual perspective we don't get swallowed up in the secular whirlpool of politics, economics, relational turmoil and the shifting winds of cultural change that drag us into its downward spiral. In the marvelous words of Luke we need to remember the two men in white who said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into Heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen Him go into Heaven.” No, we don't look into an empty sky or into the past or into our dreams and wishes but with the knowledge of His promise that He will return. So we sit at His feet, planted firmly in the Scripture, worshiping, sharing, praying and conscious of the Holy Spirit moving us to see everything in His context. We look for Him in the faces of everyone we meet. For those whose eyes seem hollow and lost without Him we look for way to share Him. For those whose eyes are full of Him we rejoice and give that knowing wink of recognition and stay open before them. Here is where we take up our cross and serve Him.
This is not really a 'new year.' It's a deepening of our roots in the Kingdom of God, our growing awareness of the Lord's presence and the excitement of waking up to see things in this new spiritual dimension. The real 'new' is every next moment awaiting His return.