A New Thing

The firewall came down this week and it was hard to see it go. The firewall was a cinder block wall which separated the Christian Education part of the building from the bell tower and Sanctuary. It is what stopped the fire from destroying the whole building and let us be able to renovate a sanctuary that only suffered minor smoke and water damage. I’ve grown fond of it being around because of what it did for our church. When the wall came down you could see straight into all the classrooms and all the way down to the wooden framing. If it did such a good job of saving of us the first time around, are we sure we want to take it down? Next to the immense sturdiness of the fire wall, the brick that adorns the outside of our building seems weak. But the structural integrity of the wall had been compromised; there were cracks in it, so it had to go. Which left the building open for all to see. Standing there, it felt like confessing our sins every Sunday before God when our souls are laid bare and you can see all the way down to the nails and slats. In confession, we confess our sins to make way for the new that God is working in our lives. The wall that will replace the firewall will be new and different. If you’ll remember from a previous post, the fire had left a mark on this wall that resembled a flame. It’s hard to let go and make room for new things. We clutch the comfortable to our chest because that is what we know. We can get so used to our wounds, and hold them and the pain they have caused us so tightly, that we fail to let them heal into scars. God is doing a new work in our church and in our lives, always. Let us have the courage to rise up and embrace it.

“See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?”

Pastor Lindsay