I’ve always been attracted to doing something new. I just got off a phone call with a guy who was telling me about his new idea to get something up and going in our church body, and I’m super excited for the possibilities that he and I were talking about. I love that moment of asking the question, “would this be good?” and the moments of saying, “ok, then, how do we do it?” It’s exciting to see the sprout of something new.
Of course, sometimes those things don’t work out. I’ve started down many a path where I’ve realized I had to kill the sprout before it killed me. I’ve started down other paths where the sprout just up and died on its own, leaving me mourning. I’ve even seen those moments where I got something going, only to see it die after I left. I have a particular award on my bookshelf that I call “the tombstone” because it reminds me of something that I poured love and energy into, only to watch it die in front of me. But I’ve also seen things that I have started grow to fruition. I have invested in ideas and people and have seen that pay off in their realized possibilities.
I have a feeling that Jesus knew these feelings. I think Jesus knew the joys and tragedies of entrepreneurship. The Master who gave us the parable of the sower understood what sprouting looked like – the good and the bad.
Some people, usually the type that don’t understand how much I love to see the sprout will say “you just love to see something new because it’s exciting.” I normally respond to this with “yes, what is wrong with exciting?” I should also follow up with “you also are disregarding the pain that goes into something new.”
I think God gets that too. God looks on us, all of us, and says, “Look! Something new!” He then brings us into His Kingdom where He works on us. Imagine our criticizing Him, “God, you’re just interested in that person because it’s exciting to see them grow.” I hope God would respond in a similar way, “Yes, and what is wrong with exciting?” and then follow it up with, “You are also disregarding the pain.”
God willingly took on the pain in Christ so that we could be someone new in His Kingdom, and He’s excited about seeing the sprout. He’s excited about seeing you in His Kingdom, so excited that He painfully took your sins on the Cross. If we have even a fraction of His excitement for something new, imagine what we might do and who we might love.