All Things New

I just graduated college last week!  To many, this would be a primarily joyous occasion but to me, it came with a lot of sadness.  To me, graduation primarily meant the end of my student teaching experience.  Over the past school year I had gotten the chance to spend a great deal of time with 22 second graders and it was, by far, one of the greatest experiences of my life.  I not only got the chance to teach the children, I got the ability to know them in a way that I never expected.  See, what many people didn't see about my students was their life outside the classroom.  They didn't see that one of them had a mom who had to work many long hours a day and was never home, they didn't the families who had to make hard decisions to provide for their kids, they didn't see the one who almost lost a mom due to an awful car accident, they didn't see their desire simply for love... they didn't see that 65% of the students in the school qualified for free or reduced lunch and the majority of the school was living well below the poverty line.  They simply didn't see and honestly, they probably didn't care.  They didn't see the brokenness of the lives of my students and the world they were born into and if they were exposed to it, they were shocked and appalled at the lives these children were living.

But, if we look at it with a biblical lens, we shouldn't be surprised!  In order to see what went wrong, we first need to look at what God intended.  If we look at the account of God creating the world in Genesis 1, we see how the world was meant to be.  In fact, we see in Genesis 1:31, 

And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. (ESV)

Do you see that?  Very good.  What I was seeing in my students doesn't look like very good!  What then happened??  Let's take a look at Genesis 3.

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made.
He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.  And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
(Genesis 3:8-13)

Well... this changes things, now doesn't it?  It was in this moment that everything began to unravel.  The world was now cursed because of disobedience to God.  There was now sickness, death, anger, guilt, shame, pain, and more.  All because of one piece of fruit and Satan's deceptive lies.  So, we shouldn't be surprised by the brokenness in the world around us.  Honestly, we should expect it.  But if I'm being honest, it often catches me by surprise!  I was often taken aback by my students' brokenness, the pain/suffering of this world, sickness, and the other pains that are a result of the fall and it left me feeling hopeless, burdened, and helpless.  It left me in a constant state of sorrow and it wasn't until this past week that the sorrow I felt began to be lifted and I was shown hope.  I spent the past week at a conference hosted by DiscipleMakers (a college ministry) with the theme "All Things New".  How fitting, right?  It was.  The perspective I was given in regards to the brokenness of the world was amazing.  I felt like there was hope!  God sent His son to earth to become fully human, yet fully God.  Jesus lived a perfect life yet died the death we deserve by being publicly shamed and left to suffocate & bleed to death on a wooden cross.  He defeated death when He rose from the dead 3 days after His death and then ascended into heaven to be seated in heaven with His Heavenly Father once more!

...talk about hope!  Revelation 5:5 says,

And one of the elders said to me, “Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.”

Weep. No. More.

There is so much comfort in those words because of the words that come after it!  "...behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered..."

Because Jesus has conquered death, weep no more.  I found so much comfort in these words!  But even more than these words, I can take hope in the fact that God has promised to make ALL things new!

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” (Revelation 21:1-5)

He is making all things new.  Not me, God.  He is making Creation new.  The human race.  The grieving mother that just lost a child.  The child who's parent abandoned them.  My friends that lost their kitchen two weeks ago to a house fire.  Even the little eight year olds in my classroom.  ALL things.  I don't know about you, dear friends but I long for that day!

May this hope and promise propel me to become something more than myself and share this hope that Christianity brings to those around me!  May this hope also relieve the burden of sadness felt in my classroom knowing that although I may not be able to do something to help them, that God has promised to make them new!

"Come, for creation groans,
Impatient of Thy stay,
Worn out with these long years of ill
These ages of delay"

Red Mountian Music- All Things New
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ukej-X-ssIo

Love and blessings,

Danielle