March 18, 2018

"Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill made low. The crooked roads shall become straight, the rough ways smooth. And all mankind will see God's salvation. "Luke 3-5,6

This passage made me think of life before Christ.  It made me think of the past, with its valleys, its mountains, the rough and sometimes crooked ways. The past can be an idol. We can get lost in the valleys of pain, of abuse, of disappointments or stuck in mountains of good memories, which even though precious, will never return.

The past can also have a loud voice in our current lives. I know in my own life, how many times I decided I couldn't do something, or be something because of the past. The pain of the past can become an identity. The past can be indeed an idol. Suddenly, those experiences, those places we've been, claim to be more real and more powerful than our God. Being in the past, implies we are not in the present where the Lord is. John invites us to let go of those highs and lows of the past and become a new creation.

How can we put the past in its own place and embrace our identity in Christ?  How can we follow John's calling into our own lives? The world offers all sorts of recipes:  therapy, self-help books, prescription meds, trying harder, transcendental meditation etc. They all claim to heal parts of ourselves. They all claim to smooth the valleys and the mountains, the crooked and the rough patches of our lives and to help us take off towards our great potential. They are like band-aids on a deep wound.

The only answer is in Jesus. He wants us to be freed from the past, from the old.   "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God… 2 Cor 5: 17. The true transformation, the true healing, the true reconciliation comes only from being in Christ. He came to make us a new creation, to give us a new identity, no matter the past. He came to reconcile us with our Father, our Creator and ultimately with ourselves, no matter what our sins might have been.

Also, same as John, we are called to spread this message. "We are therefore Christ's ambassadors" 2 Cor 5-20. In a world that is full of suffering, we need more than ever God's power and truth. The words of Billy Graham are so appropriate for the times we live in: "The Bible is not an option, it is a necessity". It is true for us, and it is true for everybody else out there. It is in God's Word and in God's presence where we find everything we are looking for.