Doing a new thing

God is doing a new thing here. In fact, God is doing a new thing all over the world. God always seems to be doing something new, creative, different, and challenging in our lives. Our God is rarely a god of the "same old same old". While in New Orleans, I was blessed to speak with a new believer. I asked what his new found belief in God had done for his life. He said he had peace, he could sleep at night, but that most of all he had hope. The crux of our faith is hope--hope in Christ, hope in the life eternal, hope for ourselves, and hope for our world, and that hope is always future facing. Hope does not look back--it always pulls us into the future, into the kingdom. The forgiveness we experience in Jesus pulls us away from the past--away from our sins, our ignorance, our hatred, and our prejudice and into the kingdom of God. God calls us to peace, to love, to reconciliation, to wholeness, to understanding, to acceptance, and to celebration. By drawing us away from the pain of our past and into the bounty of our future, God reconciles our past and gives us a future. As we see what God is doing in our midst, let us celebrate the new things--the future things, the hopeful things Jesus Christ has laid before us.