In Order to Receive New Things
Be attentive, and willing to let go of the past
Your past has really shaped you. Some words that were exchanged decades ago may still have impact on you now. However, it’s not always the things that happen to you or even the things that you do that shape you the most deeply. It’s your interpretation of these events in your past and your reaction to them that form much of who you are today.
Our personal histories are very important, but our recollections are not always accurate. Have you ever gone back to the neighborhood where you grew up, or to your elementary school, and been surprised at how small everything is? Your perspectives of size and space have changed as you have grown and experienced more of the world.
As your physical perspectives have changed, so have many of your spiritual understandings. Many perceptions that limited you in the past are no longer relevant now. You have grown, and you have seen God do new things. Often, however, people do not allow their spiritual perspectives to expand and grow. It’s easy to get locked-in to outdated religious understandings and practices that are not based on biblical truth or faith. Just as a child may misinterpret the data in their lives, so also some aspects of our faith may be based upon immature perspectives rather than actual or mature understanding.
The apostle Paul described this reality by writing, “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man I put childish ways behind me.” (1 Corinthians 13:11) When we are confronted with new and better understandings of God, what He’s doing and how His Kingdom works, we need to be willing to lay our old and limited (and limiting) views aside.
Isaiah, describing what God was soon to do wrote, “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 desert and streams in the wasteland.” (Isaiah 43:18-19) He was encouraging Israel not to be bound by the ways they thought God would act or not act. He sensed God was going to move in hugely new ways, and He wanted them to be attentive to God’s new activity.
Is God moving in any new ways in or around you? Are you being attentive to His activities, or are you living in a kind of crusty, rule-based faith that doesn’t imagine He is doing much new these days? Are there any spiritual or relational wounds that are hindering your fresh walk with God – childish or unresolved issues that you need to deal with and put behind you? Let’s pray for and believe God for new seasons; let’s also be willing to let go of the old ones.
Being Attentive with You,
Pastor Tom
tgriffith@rolcboston.org
