I am always moved by the simply video below of a young woman's first reactions to hearing sound for the first time. First in hearing her voice. Then her cries. And then her laughter. Helplessly I want to cry with her, then laugh with her, as tears of joy wash over her as she realizes she can hear and begins to move through the barrier of deafness that once had been her daily companion. But no longer. As she recognizes the strange noise that we know as sound for the first time in her life.
And I cannot help but think how we have experienced the same strong reactions when discovering God's love for us for the first time. When understanding the meaning of Jesus' death and resurrection - what we call the atonement of God - for our sins. When learning that death had been our daily companion until Jesus came and removed its presence from us. Now death can no longer cling to us nor keep us in its continual broken estate separated from God our Maker who has become our glorious Redeemer.
For in our brokenness, and by our sins, has the mystery of God's love become powerfully present in us to reveal His eternal love and purposes for our lives. Purposes that would lead us to realize for the first time that God is there. That He has always loved us. Always been present. Always moved in our lives to bring us back to Himself. That we have always eternally mattered to Him. That He has moved heaven and earth to make us one with Himself. To redeem us. To make us sons and daughters of His new creation. No matter the sin. No matter the wrongs committed in this life. No matter the crimes. All may be redeemed from brokenness and sin.
And in those first, early experiences (or embraces) of God to our minds and hearts and soul, this very powerful revelation of God's presence at work in our lives overwhelms us with a sublimity no less different than we see here present with this young woman hearing sound for the first time. Our only response can be one of thanksgiving. Relief. Gratitude. And in this case, repentance, from our former selves, wrongs and harms, that we have committed against God's grace and mercy.
But these early experiences are never the first, nor the last experiences, we will have of God. God's presence is a continual reality for every human. A presence presaging the call to repentance and salvation for those who have stubbornly refused God in their lives to their harm and destruction. Who cling to sin and death and die every day to those forces of eternal lament and woe. But for those who obey God's call to salvation, the continuing presence of God portends the daily reality of what it means to become participants in God's renewal of the earth, of society, and of even ourselves. In a lifetime of revelatory awakenings (or awareness) we, as the children of God, are renewed by the Spirit of God in ways that will make our faith real. Living. Different. "How so?" you may ask.... Your faith will be different each day. Different each Easter season. Different each Christmas season. Each Sunday worship our faith in God will grow and change us into His image. Each fellowship gathering it will move us. Each work of service, or ministry, or mission for God, will see our faith redeem us. Recreate us. Renew us. Through every act of kindness. Every act of thoughtfulness. Forgiveness. Mercy.
This living faith in God will be present in every family event, in every friendship, re-creating solidarity, restoration, renewal in us, through us, and into everyone around us. In every way God will recreate our lives as receptors - and transmitters - of His love, and mercy, and grace. We who have found forgiveness now will bear forgiveness to all around us. We who are in the depths of depression and guilt, through God's Spirit, will have His presence to help us in our very personal states of despair and purgatory. We can find dreams restored. Hopes and passions renewed. Anger, meanness, unkindness - even hate! - no longer to have the place in our hearts that it once did. And if they do, we will find our lust for them will not be like it once had been. Those sins of our spirit will become distasteful to us. Harmful. Agonizing our souls. Which will wound us by our sin. And will need the mighty transformation of the Spirit to disengage us from our wounds. From our personal toxicities displayed to another's venom in our lives. Revenge leaves us. Enmity leaves us. In every way, in every place, with every person, we are challenged by the death and resurrection of Christ working its redemption in our lives. Into our very beings like a mustard seed growing into a mighty tree of faith through practice and hope. We will find ourselves in the process of becoming by the Spirit of God.
For God has come. And He has come to stay in our lives. And is making "all things new within, and without, our lives." On seldom occassions will we behold immediate and true reform that completely conquers the sins and lust of the flesh that use to hold us so tightly with an ease not thought possible, or could be true of us in Christ, once held in the grip of our former wickedness and death. At other times this spiritual reform, or redemption, will come so slowly as to pain us over its stubbornness to leave us in our earthly selves, in our flesh and addictions, from our formerly corrupt hearts fearing to change. Resisting change. Defeating us with our every breath and act through this life. For even in our state of reform we will seem to deceive ourselves and simply carry over our old habits into our new way of life, in the church, in ministry and with others. And yet God is not done with us for we are held by His grace and mercy until the end of our lives when all will be new and redeemed. We are ever in a relationship of becoming overwhelmed by our Savior God.
R.E. Slater
And I cannot help but think how we have experienced the same strong reactions when discovering God's love for us for the first time. When understanding the meaning of Jesus' death and resurrection - what we call the atonement of God - for our sins. When learning that death had been our daily companion until Jesus came and removed its presence from us. Now death can no longer cling to us nor keep us in its continual broken estate separated from God our Maker who has become our glorious Redeemer.
For in our brokenness, and by our sins, has the mystery of God's love become powerfully present in us to reveal His eternal love and purposes for our lives. Purposes that would lead us to realize for the first time that God is there. That He has always loved us. Always been present. Always moved in our lives to bring us back to Himself. That we have always eternally mattered to Him. That He has moved heaven and earth to make us one with Himself. To redeem us. To make us sons and daughters of His new creation. No matter the sin. No matter the wrongs committed in this life. No matter the crimes. All may be redeemed from brokenness and sin.
And in those first, early experiences (or embraces) of God to our minds and hearts and soul, this very powerful revelation of God's presence at work in our lives overwhelms us with a sublimity no less different than we see here present with this young woman hearing sound for the first time. Our only response can be one of thanksgiving. Relief. Gratitude. And in this case, repentance, from our former selves, wrongs and harms, that we have committed against God's grace and mercy.
But these early experiences are never the first, nor the last experiences, we will have of God. God's presence is a continual reality for every human. A presence presaging the call to repentance and salvation for those who have stubbornly refused God in their lives to their harm and destruction. Who cling to sin and death and die every day to those forces of eternal lament and woe. But for those who obey God's call to salvation, the continuing presence of God portends the daily reality of what it means to become participants in God's renewal of the earth, of society, and of even ourselves. In a lifetime of revelatory awakenings (or awareness) we, as the children of God, are renewed by the Spirit of God in ways that will make our faith real. Living. Different. "How so?" you may ask.... Your faith will be different each day. Different each Easter season. Different each Christmas season. Each Sunday worship our faith in God will grow and change us into His image. Each fellowship gathering it will move us. Each work of service, or ministry, or mission for God, will see our faith redeem us. Recreate us. Renew us. Through every act of kindness. Every act of thoughtfulness. Forgiveness. Mercy.
This living faith in God will be present in every family event, in every friendship, re-creating solidarity, restoration, renewal in us, through us, and into everyone around us. In every way God will recreate our lives as receptors - and transmitters - of His love, and mercy, and grace. We who have found forgiveness now will bear forgiveness to all around us. We who are in the depths of depression and guilt, through God's Spirit, will have His presence to help us in our very personal states of despair and purgatory. We can find dreams restored. Hopes and passions renewed. Anger, meanness, unkindness - even hate! - no longer to have the place in our hearts that it once did. And if they do, we will find our lust for them will not be like it once had been. Those sins of our spirit will become distasteful to us. Harmful. Agonizing our souls. Which will wound us by our sin. And will need the mighty transformation of the Spirit to disengage us from our wounds. From our personal toxicities displayed to another's venom in our lives. Revenge leaves us. Enmity leaves us. In every way, in every place, with every person, we are challenged by the death and resurrection of Christ working its redemption in our lives. Into our very beings like a mustard seed growing into a mighty tree of faith through practice and hope. We will find ourselves in the process of becoming by the Spirit of God.
For God has come. And He has come to stay in our lives. And is making "all things new within, and without, our lives." On seldom occassions will we behold immediate and true reform that completely conquers the sins and lust of the flesh that use to hold us so tightly with an ease not thought possible, or could be true of us in Christ, once held in the grip of our former wickedness and death. At other times this spiritual reform, or redemption, will come so slowly as to pain us over its stubbornness to leave us in our earthly selves, in our flesh and addictions, from our formerly corrupt hearts fearing to change. Resisting change. Defeating us with our every breath and act through this life. For even in our state of reform we will seem to deceive ourselves and simply carry over our old habits into our new way of life, in the church, in ministry and with others. And yet God is not done with us for we are held by His grace and mercy until the end of our lives when all will be new and redeemed. We are ever in a relationship of becoming overwhelmed by our Savior God.
R.E. Slater
April 10, 2012
This is the reaction of a young woman hearing for the first time…
I was born deaf and 8 weeks ago I received a hearing implant.
This is the video of them turning it on and me hearing myself
for the first time. :)
Edit: For those of you who have asked the implant I received
was the Esteem model offered by Envoy Medical.
