Redemption....now

A few years ago, Jessica and I were a part of a church in Taylor. It was a small group of people meeting in a basement just trying to be the church as much as we could. One of the names (of many) that we rolled through was Make New. It was a name to reflect what Jesus is constantly trying to do in and through us, which was redeeming our lives and making them new.

Before that, I primarily thought of redemption as an after life thing. I knew inherently that there was more, but didn't put much thought into it. But, our Pastor and leader, Mike, would put the concept of redemption out as something that happens daily with our lives in Christ. I knew that Jesus was wanting to change me, but I didn't apply redemption to that change. Redemption was adding a new aspect to it. It wasn't that Jesus just was taking what was old and crappy and throwing it away, but transforming it into something new and pleasing to Himself.

Why He wants to continue to put effort into my life is beyond my understanding. But it is because of His love and for His Glory that He continues to redeem me and the stupid situations I get into. I'm incredibly grateful that He continues to care and punch away at me.

I'm self-employed as a home remodeling contractor. I like it in many ways, but it becomes stressful in many ways as well. Anyone who is self-employed understands this particular type of stress. In the past year, I have been blessed with steady jobs. I'm in general grateful for the work I get, but in this economy, I'm even more so. In the last few months I have actually had a bunch of jobs just stack right up. This was ALMOST to the point of having to turn stuff down, which I'm not a big fan of doing. I just hate losing work, because I don't have the time to do it.

Anyway, there were many days where some jobs were taking longer than expected (that's nothing new) and would really crunch things up. This would stress me out. I would sit, think, worry, try to plan, re-work, think, worry, and not know what to do. Of course, this boils into my family time. The place where it need not be. Then, I'm reminded to cast my cares to God, pray, relax, re-focus. And so many times and in so many ways God would do a literal miracle and things change, God redeems the situation. He didn't just take it away, but changed it just enough, in ways I could not. I needed to turn to Him and let the guy who can redeem, do the redeeming. He doesn't just want to change me, but make my life a new creation, daily.

This view on redemption really keeps putting the focus of my life back to Jesus. Jesus started the redemption process, from the moment Adam and Eve crapped it up, maybe even before then. He capped it off with His life, death, and resurrection. And that becomes an example and an umbrella for the redeeming of my life and YOURS.

Here we go...

Ok, so i'm entering the blogging world. I'm sure the internet will never be the same again.

Now, I gotta figure out how to get all this going!