Over the last few months I’ve been able to watch a transformation happen on the corner of Wallace Drive and Glen Greek in beautiful West Salem. I drive around that area quite often on any given day, whether I’m heading home, going to the church, hauling our kids to events, or getting groceries at Roth’s Market.
OK…I also fuel up at Starbucks pretty close to there (I’m actually writing this blog post from that hallowed spot).
The transformation in progress involves the ripping down of some old buildings, and tearing out sidewalks, in order to make way for something NEW. We are getting a re-routed intersection for better traffic flow. I personally was wanting a new strip mall, or if I’m lucky, a Vespa dealership, Trader Joes, or H&M (here’s to dreaming).
Regardless, sometimes things have to be torn down and replaced when they no longer serve the purposes for which they were intended. That’s not always a bad thing. Change is good.
Say it with me: Change. Is. Good.
That wasn’t so hard, right?
God is into change too. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”
The old becomes new in Christ. That can be a long, painful process for us, but the end-result is oh-so worth it.
Even when it comes to our methods, programs, styles, and preferences we have to consider that God is into change. Jesus told his disciples in Matthew 9:16-17 “No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch tears away from the garment, and a worse tear is made. Neither is new wine put into old wine skins. If it is, the skins burst and the wine is spilled and the skins are destroyed. But new wine is put into fresh wine skins, and both are preserved.”
The work that the Lord wants to do in us in these days, I believe, is a NEW work. He desires to change us; making us more like himself.
Are you open to this? Thankfully, we have a great promise in the Word of God that “His Mercy is New Every Morning.”
Let’s lean into his NEW mercy together!