My friend Jenny asked me to do a guest post on her blog about “newness.”  Jenny is on a mission trip in Africa and planned ahead to have several women bloggers write on this subject during the time she is away.  Today, I’m up to bat.  I would love you to go to her blog and check out the post and stay tuned for the next two weeks of posts on newness.  I’ve had a sneak peak at the posts and they are all pretty amazing.

Here is my post from JennyRain.com:

My dear friend Jenny asked if I would write a blog for a series she is doing on newness. I heartily agreed, because I love the concept of newness.

Newness means so many things to me.

Newness means a clean slate, a do over, no regrets. Newness means new beginnings, new marriages, new babies, new families. Newness means feeling like a million bucks, believing that you can conquer any mountain or swim any sea. I like to think of how I feel after a 50 minute Red Door massage, “I feel like a new woman!”

But have you ever stopped to think where this concept of newness comes from? Why do we all yearn for a new adventure, a new dream, a new surprise? Or even a new job, a new spouse, a new life. Is it that we want adventure? Do we realize that we define FAIL and simply want to start over? Maybe we are desperate to escape. Or could it be that we were born with an innate craving for newness and know, deep down in our gut, there is something more to this life?

When I have questions like these, I turn to the Bible for answers.

I don’t know if you have ever heard it put this way, but I love the idea that the Bible is basically one long love story of a creator loving his creation. From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible is full of evidence that God is in love with all he created and is writing this amazing love story, complete with suspense and anticipation, of all that He created being restored to the way it was meant to be… or in other words, MADE NEW.

You see, this world is not playing out how the Creator first intended.

When the first Man and Woman made the choice to go their own way, away from their Creator, death and decay entered the world. Before that time, our bodies were different, nature was different, and nothing ever died. Everything was as good as new every day. No one got weary or tired, no one got sick, flowers were always in bloom, the oceans didn’t roar with hurricanes, the winds didn’t devastate with tornados. The world was at perfect peace. And despite the fact that the human race chose to go their own way, the One who created everything still chose to pursue all He created in order to redeem what He created, to make everything, including you and me, as good as new for eternity.

This is what I think about when I read one of my favorite passages of the Old Testament, “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 43:19. Its almost as if I can taste the “new thing” like I can almost taste the sweet smell in the air after a spring rain. Its almost as if I can actually digest what it must be like to drink deeply of a freshwater spring in the middle of a dry Sahara. I can’t fully perceive what the Creator is doing to restore all that he created, but I know in my gut that He is. Which leads me to one of my other favorite Old Testament verses…

“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” Ecclesiastes 3:11

That where the gut comes in. I believe we are born with an innate desire to be made new because of what this verse reveals… we are born with eternity in our hearts. We don’t understand it but we sense it. And I can give up trying to understand it or fathom what God has done from beginning to end because my finite, decaying and deprived mind couldn’t possibly handle the glory of it all. But what I can KNOW and rest assured on is that God has done it. Yes, He is doing it, as we experience life real time, but the amazing part is that He has already done it. We are already made new! Creation has already been restored! God had it planned out from the start, how He would demonstrate His great love for His creation. And this is reason for tremendous Hope!

“I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.”

Romans 8:18-25

Everything, from people to plants, from minerals to water, has been redeemed by God’s great love for His creation, manifested in the person of Jesus Christ… the only created thing in the world that died, but was brought back to life, in fact, made NEW by defeating death and decay once and for all. All I have to do is believe that my Creator is trustworthy to fulfill all that He has promised in His word.

And what a show-stopping day it will be, when this marvelous truth is made known to all creation.

When everything in, on and of this earth stops it groaning and instead shouts praise to the one who, not only created, but also restored creation to its original state of being. Praises to the one who makes all things new!

And that brings us to the end of this great love story, aka the Bible. In the last chapter, when the end of the age is foretold in veiled mysteries, one thing is made crystal clear:

He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” Revelations 21:5

Consider these trustworthy and true words both written and reaffirmed in my proclamation of newness found in the resurrected Christ. I can’t wait to see what it was like back then, I can’t wait to see a new Eden, how God intended his creation to thrive.

I love how Phil Wickham puts it in his song “Eden” on his latest album Heaven and Earth. Here are the lyrics. Here is a link to the song. I invite you to hear the words and dream with me of what it will be like when this race is won and newness is finally achieved.

When the first light brightened the dark
Before the breaking of the human heart
There was You and there was me
Innocence was all I knew
‘Cause all I had to know was You
We were running underneath the trees

I wanna see you face to face
Where being in your arms is the permanent state
I want it like it was back then
I wanna be in Eden

I remember how You’d call my name
And I would meet You at the garden gate
How the glory of Your love would shine
And I remember when the stars were young
You breathed life into my lungs
Oh I never felt so alive

I wanna see you face to face
Where being in your arms is the permanent state
I want it like it was back then
I wanna be in Eden

To be naked and unashamed
In a sweet down pour of innocent rain
I want it like it was back then
I wanna be in Eden

Where my eyes can see the colors of glory
My hands can reach the heaven before me
Oh, my God I wanna be there with You
Where our hearts will beat with joy together
And love will reign forever and ever
Oh my God I wanna be there with You

I wanna see you face to face
Where being in your arms is the permanent state
I want it like it was back then
I wanna be in Eden

To be naked and unashamed
In a sweet down pour of innocent rain
I want it like it was back then
I wanna be in Eden