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This week, we light the first candle.  We begin to fill the darkness with a single light, and it brings Hope.  Hope that more light is coming…

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 ministering with teenagers.  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….for these words of Hope…

Here we go again with another “Five Minute Friday” post!  To learn more about “Five Minute Friday” (FMF), check out the linked image here.  Basically, each week there’s a word given for you to write about.  You start writing, no back-tracking, editing, etc.  At the end of 5 minutes, you stop.  Then you post it, and share in the community of words that were birthed during these 24-ish hours.  It’s cool stuff.
So here’s this week’s response to the word: “wonder”

Recently I wrote about Bob Goff’s book “Love Does”.  Bob is a big fan of the word “whimsey”.  For me, the word “Wonder” seems to capture some of what he’s talking about.  Those magical moments that seem to be too surreal to be real.  To name just a few:

That moment when I stepped down off the platform, ring in one hand and microphone in the other, and asked her to marry me.  The cheers came, the tears came, and all I wanted to do was pause the rest of creation to hold my fiancee for a moment, relishing the wonder.  Not to mention the moment of lifting her veil, and walking down the aisle into the world as one.

That moment (all three) when I realized that inside my wife was a child.  A child who would someday become a full-grown woman, with children and grandchildren and accomplish who knows what.

That moment when I hugged Pat Sajak, and jumped up and down in front of cameras, in absolute wonder that I’d won a show I’d grown up watching.

That moment (many) when I look into the sky on a clear night, and see stars beyond the stars.  Not worried or curious about what planets or other life might be out there.  But simply in awe and wonder that our God has created such a vast experience for us to take in.  That He has allowed for so much in this creation that will someday be even more full of wonder – as Heaven and Earth come together as one – just as my wife and I are now…

Yikes.  That was fun. 🙂

How much impact can adopting a child make on the world?

Yup. Even Hollywood gets it.  Kinda.  🙂