You Can Make Progress as a New Creation.
Before retiring from the City of Charlotte as an engineer, I worked on several transit projects. One of those, a streetcar system called the CityLYNX Gold Line, used overhead wires to power the streetcar. The catenary poles hold the wires in the air. You’ve probably seen them in many streetcar systems around the world. Those poles required large foundations. The drill bit in the photo dug the foundations for the catenary poles.
The line ran a couple of blocks from my office so it was easy to keep track of progress while on my daily lunch walks. This drill had one job. To make forward progress until it reached the point where the foundation had something solid to bear upon.
As the bit proceeds toward its goal, it moves loose material back up to the surface. The material making its way to the surface is history.
That’s right. Sometimes there is soil. That soil tells the past. Some soils were native. Some had only been there for a few decades. They may have been placed and compacted to build the road we were now using for a streetcar corridor. Sometimes a gas line or telephone cable had recently been put underground and the soil was new. No matter what type of soil or how old, it had a history.
On more than one occasion the drill found something other than soil. They often ran into out-of-service utilities, concrete, asphalt, roots from landscaping, or foundations used for other projects long ago abandoned.
You may feel like that drill bit. You make your way forward as best you can. Could be a relationship, a job, an education endeavor, or your walk with the Lord. Along your way you begin bringing up history. Some of your history may be clean, native soil. It’s just who you are. Nothing out of the ordinary there.
You may have thought what made its way to the surface was long ago buried. A conversation reminds you of an action you took that you aren’t proud of. Could be you are more than not proud of it, you are ashamed. The more you try to move forward, the more history spills back to the surface.
I know thinking about our history can be a tough thing. Even something as small as something you said about someone. The guilt can easily eat at you, making you want to stop moving forward so those memories and the guilt associated will stay put.
Don’t despair. If you have a relationship with Jesus, you are not your history. Paul knew this and shared it in a letter to the Corinthians.
bctt tweet=”You Can Make Progress as a New Creation. #hope #joy #writingcommunity”]
“Therefore if anyone is in Christ, this person is a new creation; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.” (2 Corinthians 5:17, NASB)
Sure, those things happened. You will likely remember them. But you don’t have to dwell on them or live life tied to them—outside of any consequences your actions may have caused.
The project hauled away whatever the drill bit moved to the surface . That history had no hold on the project.
Similarly, when you ask Jesus to be your Lord and Savior, He makes you a new creation. The old is gone. New things have come. You’ve been forgiven. You can move forward toward your goal of knowing Him better and living a Christ-centered life.
Also like the photo, some of that junk is hard to let go of. It wants to stick to you like that dirt sticking to the teeth on the bit. You may not be able to remove those sticky feelings on your own, but God can. And He will.
Does your past want to surface and get in the way of progress? Let God load it up and haul it away, so it won’t be in your way to making progress as a new creation.
Today’s feature photo comes from a “photo-a-day” challenge I pursued several years ago. The photo inspires the topic. For me, the posts challenge my creativity, writing discipline, and dependence on God for His message. My prayer is that you find hope in God’s Word, and that you’ll share your hope with others.
