New Beginnings

Posted on May 15, 2021

By Linda Rex

May 23, 2021, DAY OF PENTECOST—Recently while on vacation, I pulled out an empty canvas and some acrylic paints a dear friend had left me, and began to paint. Staring at an empty canvas that needs to be filled is a lot like staring at an empty page and trying to figure out what to write. There are so many possibilities ahead that one hardly knows where to begin. Consider for a moment what it was like as the Spirit hovered over the waters, as everything was without form and empty.

In times past I have avoided painting due to the difficulty I have in controlling the outcome. The brush has a mind of its own and I cannot always get it to do what I want. My preferred method of artwork usually involves colored pencils or pen and ink for this very reason. But there is a loss of freedom in such control of the outcome.

But the Creator sees things differently—he gives each and every thing which he creates an incredible freedom. He does not need to control every movement and every decision—otherwise we would all be robots. Instead, God allows each tree, plant, fish, bird, animal, and human to be who he created them to be. By his creative Spirit, he moves in all he has made to accomplish his purposes, but always with this element of true freedom based in his love.

This creates a built-in risk for our Creator—what if a creature he has made decides to live in a way which is different from his design? When my brush takes off across the canvas in a way I didn’t plan for, I get frustrated—in my mind, I now have a big mistake to rectify. But what if mistakes are part of the picture? What if the possibility of something not turning out in the way I expected actually ends up adding to the result, making it better?

What we find is that the Creator of all things planned in advance for this reality in what he created. We discover in the written Word of God that even before he created all things, the Maker of all had a plan to redeem and restore his creation should it wander away from its intended life path. He made our mistakes a part of his picture—redemption and restoration in and through the gift of his Son was allowed to be an essential part of his creation process. In fact, God always meant to include us in his life and love—and our turning away from him did not prevent this purpose from being realized.

Think about the history of human beings and how God has worked in and through each one to accomplish his purpose. Over the millennia before Christ, we find kingdoms rose and kingdoms fell, people lived and died, children were born and grew up. Through all these events, natural calamities, and over a long period of time, the creative Spirit worked. God even included certain people in his efforts—calling Noah to build an ark, Abraham to leave his country and people, and Moses to lead Israel out of Egypt. Flawed people included in his plan—and yet the Creator continued his masterpiece.

Indeed, we find that all along God was working to restore and renew his creation, and allowing us as broken human beings to be a part of the process. When he sent his Son, we find angels celebrating this momentous event. Now God had moved even closer to his creation—he had taken on human flesh to live and walk on earth as one of us! The divine Painter had himself become the brush in the hand of the creative Spirit!

How amazing that God reconstructs the creatures he made in his image from the inside out. He enters our space and time, experiences our limitations and frailties, and begins to redeem and restore as one of us. He develops personal relationships with those he made and begins to teach them what it means to be truly human, demonstrating it by the way he lived. Rather than being enslaved by the sin which controls us, he conquered it, taking it all the way to the cross and delivering us from it through death and resurrection. And then he took our humanity up with him into the presence of the Father—our humanity restored and renewed in his person, dwelling forever with God as was always intended.

Jesus told his disciples when he left at ascension that he would not leave them as orphans. He was going to send them the Spirit, the other Helper like himself, who would be with them forever. The creative Spirit was poured out on all flesh from the Father by Jesus so that we all could participate in Christ’s true humanity. Instead of the masterpiece being so flawed that it must be thrown out, all God has made has incredible possibilities in store!

Think for a minute about Judas Iscariot, the son of perdition. This man had many choices in his life, the capacity to be a true follower of Jesus Christ. But he was given over to thievery—often stealing money from the common purse. And when push came to shove, he sold the Savior for thirty pieces of silver. Here was a mistake beyond mistakes—selling the Messiah for a paltry sum so that he ended up being crucified.

But the crucifixion of Jesus Christ was a part of the masterpiece God was creating. It was not as though God wanted Judas to do this idiocy, but rather, that he included it as a necessary part of the picture. It was not God’s choice for Judas, but it was Judas’ choice, which God honored and allowed, using it to accomplish a greater purpose in the end, the redemption of all humanity.

What if, instead of focusing on our faults and failures, we offered them up to the creative Spirit to pour into them his recreative power to renew and redeem? What if we allow Jesus to be who he is—our Savior and Redeemer, the One who restores all things? What is it in your life and mine which needs to be reconstructed?

There may be a time of deconstruction first—God sometimes needs to remove some things so there is space for something new. But God’s purpose is to transform, heal and renew—and we can participate with him in that process. And who knows what the outcome will be? God says that through Christ and by the Spirit, it will be better than we can ever ask or imagine! His masterpiece—humanity transformed and renewed—will live with him forever in the new heavens and new earth, as we begin by his Spirit to experience this life in relationship with the Father and Son even now.

Thank you, Creator of all, for everything you have made and how wonderfully you have worked and will work to transform, heal and renew your creation. We invite you, Creative Spirit, to finish what you have begun in us and in our world. Keep our focus on you, Jesus, and the incredible possibilities that are ahead, because of all you have done and will do by your Spirit to the glory of the Father. Amen.

“When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance.”     Acts 2:1-4 (5-21) NASB

“O LORD, how many are Your works! In wisdom You have made them all; | The earth is full of Your possessions. … You hide Your face, they are dismayed; You take away their spirit, they expire | And return to their dust. You send forth Your Spirit, they are created; | And You renew the face of the ground.”     Psalm 104:24, 29-30 NASB