Tag: hope for the future

The old passes

We see it everywhere, it’s all around us and it’s so ever present that we expect it. We never doubt that it will happen. The seasons; they come like clock work every year. They vary in their expression but the change is inevitable. As a Canadian I often vainly hope that this is the year that winter won’t arrive, but it always does. If we’re lucky it’s mild and short-lived, but come it does.

As I clear away the dead from the winter, I discover the new growth underneath. Brave little starts pushing their way through the dirt. The difficulty of shedding the old and starting the new. All things must pass. Everything will die. But new growth comes, as sure as the seasons.

I believe deeply we as a culture are in a transition between the passing of winter and the burgeoning of spring. The dead needs to be shed and the new growth encouraged and safeguarded. Believe in new beginnings and nurture all that is good.

2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come:
The old has gone, the new is here!

A moment in time

I was driving around today trying to match a piece of kitchen tile. My travels took me east. I found myself driving down a road I used to travel often. I now have little reason to drive that direction. The road was so familiar and the route so pleasant in its memories that I felt sad.

I felt the loss of the past. The loss of happier times. Time and distance remove much of the bluster and fuss that comes with daily life. We look at the past as someone looking through a telescope. It’s way over there, confined to the view of the lens. It’s beautiful and free of close up grit of life. The past is far enough away that you can’t see the dust lingering on the lamp shade.

I felt sad. I forgot the stress of the time and remember the joy. Like the Israelite people who moaned to Moses, “They said to Moses, ‘Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt?'” (Exodus 14: 11)

They all knew that their lives were bad in Egypt, but their current situation seemed so absent of hope that the present felt worse. In the same way I longed for the past as I drove over the smooth wide road. But we can’t go back. Even if we could, it wouldn’t be what we remember. So we carry on.

We move forward putting our trust in God and having faith that he is leading us to the promised land.