Focus on the new things
As a pastor of a Christian church, we hold as sacred the texts of the Old and New Testament. We share in common with our Jewish brothers and sisters the Old Testament. Much of the Old Testament is the account of God's relationship with the ancient Jewish people, often referred to as the Israelites. Throughout the Old Testament there are books designated as the writings of different prophets. A prophet is one who speaks for God and brings a message to the people of God. Sometimes these messages are messages of judgment, announcing to the people the errors of their ways. Other times the message is one of hope, promising deliverance for the people of God.
In the Book of Isaiah (the writings of the prophet Isaiah) we read, "See I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up, do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland." A message delivered thousands of years ago still has relevance today. In that quote, Isaiah is announcing that God is doing something new, and he asks the people if they can see it. He also adds that God's "new thing" is through the wilderness, often an image in the Old Testament of a place of struggle and suffering, and he says that God is making streams in the wasteland, once again, God's "new thing" happens in a place of difficulty, struggle and challenge.
As a person of faith and as a hopeful person, I believe that God is always doing something new. I believe that God's work is positive and transforming. I believe that God's work is focused on love and the spreading of love to everyone, especially those who might feel unloved or unlovable. This is what I mean about new and powerful.
Often, we find ourselves dwelling on the past, focusing on some loss that grips us and won't let us go. I encourage my congregation to focus on the future and where we are headed. A good friend of mine and a teacher says, "Don't look back, that's not where we are going!" We often are crippled by anxiety and worry, focusing on what has happened to us in the past, rather than looking for the new thing that God is doing in our lives and in the world. A well-known and widely published psychologist shared a study that she conducted that revealed that 91.4% of things we worry about never come true. In her extensive study, she found out that 1 out of 4 participants reported that exactly zero of their recorded worries ever materialized. If she is right and if her data is correct, then we lie awake at night and lose sleep over things that will never happen, outcomes that will never materialize, possibilities that really aren't possibilities. I am not trying to downplay or minimize the reality of crippling anxiety or worry, I am simply trying to encourage us all to focus on the new things that are happening in our midst, things that are good and positive and impactful to all in our community.
My hope and prayer is that we will all work harder to be a part of this sort of life-giving and life-changing work that goes on all around us. Sometimes they are small things, but their impact can be profound. Let us commit ourselves to looking for and working for the common good.
The Rev. Dr. Stewart Rawson is the pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Downtown Sumter.