Scraps and Second Chances

 

This is what the Lord says, “If you repent, I will restore you, that you may serve me.”

—Jeremiah 15:19

I love the way old things can become new and useful again—like scrap quilts, for example. I admire the artistry and creativity put into sewing a beautiful quilt out of scraps of material that individually are hardly large enough to be used for anything else.

Suddenly the old collection of dress fabrics, or Father’s ties, or Mother’s aprons takes on a whole new life and usefulness with years more of service. You might say that those scraps have become redeemed from the stash.

Think of God as our Redeemer, our Savior, the One who makes new that which was old.

In Jeremiah 31:31, He promised a new covenant with the House of Israel. In 2 Corinthians 5:17, Paul reminds us that:

If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come.

Likewise, God has promised a New Heaven and a New Earth, saying in Revelation 21:5:

“I am making everything new.”

Throughout the Bible, we read stories of saints who have become redeemed from their past sins to serve God again.

• Think of Moses, whom God called at age 80 to lead God’s people through the wilderness and who had murdered a fellow Israelite (see Exodus 2-3).
  
  
• Or, think of David, the promised king guilty of adultery and murder, whom God cleansed of his sin and continued to use as king (see 2 Samuel 11-12).
  
  
• Or, consider Jonah, whom God called on a special errand to Nineveh and who rebelliously took off in the opposite direction, yet received a second call (see Jonah 1).
  
  
• Or, think of Peter, the leader of the New Testament Church and one of the Twelve, who denied the Lord Jesus, not once but three times, but whom Jesus reinstated after considering Peter’s repentant heart (see John 21:15-19).

We each may know people in our own lives to whom God has given a second chance. Most often, these people, knowing the mercy and forgiveness of God, go on to serve Him with even more vigor than before. They have a testimony of God’s redeeming grace—His ability to rescue, repair, renew, and repurpose.

Perhaps you, too, have offended against God’s holy will, have disobeyed, or have disregarded Him. He waits to redeem your life and restore you, too. Please take note of Psalm 103:1-5:

Praise the Lord, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name. Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits—who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems you life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

 

 

Seasons

 

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven.

—Ecclesiastes 3:1

Ecclesiastes 3 tells us that the seasons of our earthly life lie between “a time to be born” and “a time to die.” Yet, we know from the same chapter that “God has set eternity in our hearts” and that we have a hard time understanding what God does from beginning to end.

Anyone living through this 21st century COVID-19 Pandemic can agree with this lack of understanding. One day, we seem to have a handle on the virus and we learn to live with it. The next day, we hear that the virus has sprung up in a place unknown to us, setting us back in our plans.

When we look over the seasons of our earthly lives, we see seasons that contained wonderful joy and fulfillment only to dissolve into tragedy and loss in nearly the next moment of time. We prefer the times of planting and laughing, of dancing and loving, but God uses all the seasons to accomplish His work in us and in the world.

Perhaps you can think of childhood times, so long and wonderful, or of the early days of your marriage when you shared day-after-day of happiness and delight. It was easy to praise God then and easy to see His tender love and care.

Yet, from experience in the winter seasons of life, we have come to recognize the loving work of God through hardship and confusion, as well. And, we have learned to trust Him that all things will work together in His holy timing, even this horrible Pandemic.

The hardest part comes when we learn that we haven’t been invited into the planning and that we have no say in the broad picture. Just before Jesus went into heaven, Scripture records in Acts 1:7 that He said:

It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power.

Jesus said He would come back to get His church. But, we obviously would not share in the timing of that event. We see, all too well, that “He is God and we are not!”

So, what should we do in every situation of trial and trouble? In that same passage from the Book of Acts that I mentioned above, Jesus told the disciples that they would be His witnesses all over the world with the power He would give from His Holy Spirit. In 2 Timothy 4:2, Paul wrote to Timothy that, in season and out of season—when it was convenient and when it was not—Timothy was to:

“…preach the Word; be prepared to correct, rebuke and encourage with great patience and careful instruction.”

In this time of great uncertainty, God expects us to trust Him, to know that our times are in His hands. We are to continue His work of spreading the Gospel and blessing others. We can pray with David from Psalm 31:14-19 when he faced the uncertainty of living in the presence of enemies:

I trust in you, O Lord: I say, “You are my God.” My times are in your hands; deliver me from my enemies… How great is your goodness which you have stored up for those who fear you, which you bestow in the sight of men on those who take refuge in you.

Then we can conclude our prayer by hearing David’s words from Psalm 31:23-24:

Love the Lord, all his saints! The Lord preserves the faithful, but the proud he pays back in full. Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the Lord.

 

 

Tracking in Mud

 

And Moses said, “Here I am.” “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.”;

—Exodus 3:5

Nothing makes a mom crazier than having an unaware dog or unaware child with muddy feet run across her newly mopped floor. You can just hear her shout: “Stop! Stop! Stop! You’re tracking in mud! Take off your shoes!”

Have you ever spent time in prayer when you suddenly got interrupted by something or someone? And, before you could get back to prayer, you realized that you had already said or done something for which you needed forgiveness. Our feet get muddy so quickly that we barely notice. We easily become as unaware as that dog or child running over mom’s clean floor.

After the Passover Meal, on the night Jesus was betrayed and arrested, He began washing the feet of His disciples. When He came to Simon Peter, Peter objected to Jesus’ work. John 13:8-10 records what happened next:

Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.”

“Then, Lord,” Simon Peter replied, “not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!”

Jesus answered, “A person who has had a bath needs only to wash his feet; his whole body is clean.”

What did Jesus mean?

It seems that those who had been baptized into Christ—had accepted the washing He gives to make them new creatures in Him—didn’t really need to continually come back for a thorough cleansing. In contrast however, Jesus realized that feet, in open sandals that walk the dusty roads of Palestine, get muddy over and over again.

We need this same spiritual cleansing today. We go to places we shouldn’t go. We step on others’ feelings. We wander away into enemy territory. We run after things that we don’t need. All our wanderings often act like quicksand to pull us down. We even suffer wounds to our spiritual feet that need cleaning and binding up.

No wonder, in Exodus 3:5, God told Moses to take off his muddy sandals. Like Moses, we need to realize that when we come before God to talk with Him in prayer, our muddy shoes carry the smell of sin. Jesus may not want any part of us at that moment. But, He never turns us away. He merely asks us to allow Him to wash our feet. When we do, we become accepted by Him and enabled by Him to wash others’ feet—to treat them as God has treated us—and to share fellowship with Him.

Like the hymn reminds us, we are “prone to wander, prone to leave the God we love.”¹ How marvelous it is that Jesus, even before He took our sins to the cross, reminded us, through this incident with His disciples, that our feet get dirty more often than we realize.

Daily, we personally need to take account of our sin and submit to the washing before we enter His holy presence. Likewise, when our church congregations come together in His presence, we corporately need to take account of our corporate sin by the “Confession” and receive God’s blessing through the “Assurance of Pardon.” In so doing, we remember that we need the “washing” by the hands of our Savior. Jesus wants to use us with clean shoes and feet!

______________________

1 Robinson, Robert. “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing.” Public domain.

 

 

Unusual Kindness

 

Once safely on shore, we found out that the island was called Malta. The islanders showed us unusual kindness. They built a fire and welcomed us because it was raining and cold.

—Acts 28:1-2

A person doesn’t forget an unusual kindness done for him or her. The missionary Paul, on his way to prison in Rome, spent three months of his journey on the island of Malta because the ship that took him shipwrecked there. Paul either journaled about, or merely remembered, the extraordinary way the strangers on that island greeted this dirty, water-logged group of men. Oh, the kindness!

When Corrie ten Boom recalled the days after her release from the Ravensbrück Concentration Camp¹ at the end of World War II, she specifically remembered the nurse who led her down gleaming corridors into a room with a steaming bathtub. She stated that nothing ever felt as good as that bath. She also commented on the bed with sheets and how she could not get enough of running her hands over them, as they soothed her swollen feet. Oh, the kindness!

A missionary, Gracia Burnham, had much the same reaction after spending a year running, hiding, sleeping on the ground, and watching her husband die in the wet jungles of the Philippines.² In her vivid remembrance, she too recalled the spotless sheets and the comfortable mattress. She compared them to the terrifying nights she had spent in the open. Oh, the kindness!

When we imagine this kind of treatment by strangers, especially for those who have lived through horrific circumstances, we realize that the Gift of Kindness comes as a remnant of the image of God in human form. Jesus, too—God incarnate—shows us kindness. His kindness is always beyond our need. His kindness is always beyond our deserving. His kindness always changes us.

Romans 2:4 asks:

Do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?

Imagine the Apostle Paul, or Corrie ten Boom, or Gracia Burnham turning down the kindness shown to them! God’s purposes through His kindness lead us to repentance for our “old rags.” His kindness offers us fresh, new garments in which He invites us to live. Isaiah 61:3 expresses His kindness this way:

…to grant to those who mourn in Zion—to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.

Yes! It is so very true that, in His loving kindness, God has a “garment of praise” for us in exchange for the garment of a faint spirit—that is, a spirit of despair. Oh, the kindness!

First of all then, let us praise God for His kindnesses to us in and through the Lord Jesus Christ. These gifts of kindnesses to us should be remembered and told, when we share our stories with others. Secondly, we need to recall the kindnesses that others have shown us—the kindnesses that have led to effect good outcomes in our lives. Thirdly, as carriers of His image, let us show the same kind of transforming kindnesses to others around us.

Let us continually ask ourselves: “This day, to whom is God asking us to bless with unusual kindness?”

______________________

1 Ten Boom, Corrie with John and Elizabeth Sherrill. The Hiding Place. Old Tappan NJ: Revell Company, 1971. p. 228.

2 Burnham, Gracia with Dean Merrill. In the Presence of My Enemies. Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale Book Publishers, Inc., 2010. Amazon Kindle location: 4309.