Have you ever moved to a new home or apartment? When everyone hears that you bought a new home or found a new apartment they get excited. And it is exciting, but the transition to a new home is messy.
Think about it:
All the stuff in your cupboards and closets has to come out. You cannot just pack everything that is in one closet into a single box and move it to a new closet in the new home. You have to go through your current closet and see if those items should go with you. Decorations on the wall? You have to look and imagine those things on the wall of your new home. You take them down and stare at them and decide, “Do I really want this anymore?”
That’s what being a new creation is like. You receive a word of encouragement at church or you read a scripture that shouts to your brain, “It’s not time to live in this kind of life anymore. It’s time for joy and peace. You are a new creation, a new beginning.” Everyone around you shouts. You get excited. The promise is yours.
But then you go home and you have to let God walk you around your current “house” (your mind, your belief systems, your outlook, your heart). The Holy Spirit starts to open the cupboards and closets, exposing stuff you have had hidden for years. He smiles and says, “Trust me. We have to see what fits in your new place.” He encourages you to start taking out everything from your heart, exposing it to the light. “Do you really need this anymore?” (as he shows you wounds from your childhood.) “Is this something you want to decorate with in your new place?” (as he reveals an unhealthy self-image from experiences of rejection.)
Soon it feels like everything is out all over the floors and the tables, it looks like a real, overwhelming mess. Yet with every trash bag that leaves the house for the curb filled with things you don’t think fit with your new look, your new home, your new creation, a lightness begins to fill you. Progress.
Words of encouragement, times of shouting and rejoicing for hope of a new place in Christ are awesome. But we have to remember that we actually have to transition to that new place. We need to call the movers and the cleaners and prepare ourselves for the victory Christ already purchased for us. So if right now you feel like your insides are all over the place, recognize you are in a place of transition. You are moving into that new glory in Christ. You are just trying to figure out whether your old things fit in the new you. Grab a trash bag. It’s time to let go.
