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“So why do people go there?” My wife asked me, a long time ago…and again as we drove up to Northern Michigan.  We were on our way to visit Mackinac Island (Used to be “Mackinaw” Island, until the French decided it was spelled wrong.).  So what did I respond?

“Um…there’s good fudge?”

It’s hard to explain.  Sure, there are quaint things about the place.  No cars allowed.  Horses and bike and yachts everywhere.  Fudge and others small shops.  Fresh whitefish everywhere.  History surrounds you.  The Grand Hotel, the setting of a movie people watch in order to make their island visit more meaningful, but probably wouldn’t have seen otherwise.  Thinking about it all as we enjoyed a “date night” on the island made me realize:

It’s kinda like catching a cold. 🙂  A good one, of course.

It starts with someone who’s been there.  Who has “caught” the bug.  They take their kids.  Their kids go with friends.  And one day, kids grow up and have kids, and a husband turns to his wife and says, “Let’s go to the island.”  She smiles.  She loves him.  So she goes. 🙂  And guess what?  She enjoys it too.  We’ll have to bring our kids again when they’re a bit older to make sure the bug sticks with them. 

And yes…we enjoyed other Northern Michigan traditions such as Petoskey Stone huntin’, crossing the Mackinaw Bridge into the Upper Peninsula, and spent a couple nights in Traverse City.  We toured several bays, and had our fill of quaint little shops, fresh fish smells, and homes/boats that cost WAY too much money.  But altogether the same…a “bug” that’s passed around.  No Disney.  No giant national monuments.  Although Moomers was voted # 1 by Good Morning America. 🙂

Which brings up the question: What “bugs” have you caught? What experience or special spot to visit have you been to…that when someone asks you “Why do you love going there?”, you have a hard time nailing down “the reason”?

2 Peter 1:5-8 (paraphrase) – “That is why you must bring every bit of energy you have to bear on the task of supplementing your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patience, and patience with godliness, and godliness with “family” (or brotherly) affection, and family affection with love.  If you have these things in plenty, you see, they will ensure that you are not wasting your time or bearing no fruit in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

So often we find ourselves caught up, as individuals, but also in the things we do alongside other people, quite busy but not quite accomplishing much at all.  Pursuing things like money, success (one or more of the infinite varieties being sold to us), power, achievements, or that “next level” where we’ll be able to relax a bit more…because isn’t being able to relax a bit more the ultimate goal?  Even if we cover it up with the “Christian” notion of working really hard and sacrificing now, so that someday we’ll kick back sipping Jesus-ade and playin’ harps while the kids run around throwin’ clouds at each other.

I look forward to more than this.  And what I look forward to, the “goal” as it were, is something that offers to transform how I exist in the now.  Offers to transform the direction of my family.  Offers to transform the direction of how I spend time with those that I love.  I don’t always allow it to…yet there it is…offering wildly eternal things.

It was pointed out to me recently that as Paul is speaking of Love (and Faith and Hope) in 1 Corinthians 13, he’s not talking about some sort of golden star seal of approval that “love” gives anything that we’d like to do…making it “worth” something.  He’s speaking to a world that knows of goals that have been set by philosophers and religious communities alike, that are incongruous with the eternity initiated by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Reminding them that not everything that smells good will last forever.  Even some of the gifts of the Spirit will become a bit superfluous when God finishes what He began.  Things like speaking in tongues, prophecy, and special gifts of “knowledge”.

That only things done shaped in the virtues of Faith, Hope, and above all – Love….will stand the test of eternity.  They will bear fruit not only in this world, but in the Kingdom that is coming (and is already begun).  I will confess, when held up to this light…it is something I need to work on.  Which is why I’ve been praying on the verse at the beginning of this post lately…for myself, for my family.  In the name of Jesus…

Ephesians 4:24 “and to clothe yourself with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”

I really like this verse.  Particularly the phrase “new self”.  We desire to be made new, and it’s not about shedding everything we’ve ever been through as if we could forget how this broken world has impacted us.  How we’ve been hurt, cheated, lied to, offended.  How we’ve hurt, cheated, lied to, and offended others.  So many of those things, even after forgiveness comes, linger in the corners of our minds and the back of our soul…and we convince ourselves that a good Christian would be able to forget completely the ways of this world…so we pretend we have.

But this and other verses (2 Corinthians 5:4) remind us that it’s not about destroying who we have been and building completely from the ground up.  Any more than God is about scrapping the entire cosmos in order to rebuild things completely different.  It’s about God taking what exists, and “swallowing up by life”. 

God desires to take what has happened, and what is happening in our lives, and “clothe” these things with a new purpose.  Not to ignore what it is, and pretend hearing words like these will automatically bring hope to those who have experienced immense pain.  But approaching what is, genuinely and with a Love and Desire to make all things New.  To redeem our entire lives, transforming not only our hearts and minds, but our history as well.

The words for “new self” continue to be very encouraging.  The word “new” is “kainos”, which can either mean new form (recently made, fresh, recent, unused, unworn), or new substance (of a new kind, unprecedented, novel, uncommon, unheard of).  I would think both translations could be quite Hope-filling. 

It also helps that the verse directly before it uses the words “put away your former way of life, your old self”.  The word for old here is “palaios”, which means old, ancient, no longer new, worn by use, comes from the root word for “former” or “long ago”.

I think it’s one of the reasons I love Youth Ministry.  They understand the concept of acquiring a new identity, and letting go of an old one.  Heck, many of them develop new identities on an annual basis as they go from 7th-12th grades. (usually just one in 6th or 7th, another in 9th, and another toward the end of 12th) 🙂  So the task becomes, allowing them to see that can happen from God in a way that is quite supernaturally different from receiving it from their peers, culture, or family situations.  Thank you, Jesus….