Struggling With The New

This post is written by Jon Acuff (author of Stuff Christians Like) and can be found on his blog:

http://www.jonacuff.com/stuffchristianslike/2009/12/struggling-with-new/

At our last trip to Tybee Island, Georgia, I was in charge of building a sea creature corral. We made a shallow hole and filled it with as many interesting animals as we could find. Starfish, hermit crabs, seashells, we made our own mini aquarium next to our chairs. I even caught a big crab by sneaking up on it from behind with my cat like reflexes.

But then it died.

In the midst of watching this oceanic wonderland, the crab stopped moving. I picked it up. It’s little crab eyes were cloudy, it’s legs hung limp and when I placed it upside down on it’s back it stayed there without a flicker of life in it.
We stopped thinking about it and continued playing on the beach, but then something weird happened.
The crab started molting.

What I mistook as death was actually new life. Inch by inch, it’s shell started coming off like a winter coat. The crazy thing was that it didn’t just grow a new shell. I knew they shed that top shell, but the crab actually grew a completely new body. It’s legs, it’s antennae, every part of it come off in one completely empty replica of the crab. It wasn’t just the shell, this whole crab was brand new.

I always thought the big stuff would change, the shell itself, but it surprised me to see how complete and utter the transformation of that crab was. At the end of 30 minutes, it looked like there were two complete crabs on the beach. One soft and new and beating with the blood of fresh life. One a hollow, slightly smaller shell.

Watching this little crab grow completely challenged my understanding of what it means to become new. That crab wasn’t just improved. It wasn’t given a new shell but the same old legs to carry it around with. The whole thing was new. And I think that’s how God works in our lives too.

I’ve talked before about struggling with porn for 18 years or so. In the summer of 2005, I really confronted that issue. I ended up spending three years as part of a men’s group at First Baptist Woodstock that deals with that. And it was an incredible period of renewal and a season where my relationship with God went 3D.

But sometimes, I look back on that and I forget I’m new. I don’t believe the truth about God’s transformative nature. I think in 2009, I’m not “new Jon,” I’m just “old Jon minus porn.” I’m just a better version of the me I’ve always been. But that’s not true.

And it’s not true for you either.

We, as people, are capable of self improvement. We love the idea that the things we do in our lives can make us better. We can learn and grow and change. That’s why self help books sell so well. But God isn’t in the business of self improvement, he’s in the business of new.

That’s why 2 Corinthians 5:17 is a verse I will continue to write about:

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!”

How powerful is that last section? There are two grenades in there. The first is that the old has gone. It’s not just that the old has been replaced or that the old has been shoved into a closet and if things get tense again and you feel stressed you’re going to put it back on and become the person that hurt so many people in the middle of your divorce or got fired or abandoned your kids while you selfishly tried to “reclaim your youth.” That person? That shell? That’s gone. The second grenade is that in it’s place, the new has come! The new, not the better, the new!

You might look dead at some point in your journey just like that crab. I can’t imagine molting is a pleasant experience. The summer of 2005 was the worst season of my entire life as I became new. But new life was on the other side. That’s what’s waiting.

New life.

As I’ve said before, and I’ll say again:

Death to better, long live new.

http://made-new.com/