Another day is born.

Muted complimentary shades sink into each other.  They spread across a morning sky, fluid and changing, morphing and rearranging themselves into mauves and violets, pinks and baby blues like a gentle watercolour mixing, swirling, dovetailing pigments in shapes and forms waiting to dry.

And there was evening and there was morning, a new day.

Musings full of oft repeated promise in the mind of God take concrete form as he speaks the world into being through the Word.  With the heavens and earth swirling in formlessness, the Spirit broods over the waters and life explodes in joy.  The glory of God becomes manifest in creation, pinnacled in human life, captured in images of pink and blue.

‘Rely on my love.  Be fruitful, multiply, and serve as stewards of my coveted piece of handiwork.  Combine your swirling aspirations blended in perfect balance with my will.  For it is good, very good,’ was the joyous cry of the Creator with an invitation for us to take part in shaping his artistic display, glorifying God and enjoying him forever.

And so, as those who follow him, we participate together with inter-mingled embryonic suggestions and ideas.  Multiple aspirations in communities who seek the emergence and development of new possibilities through prayer and attentive listening, daring faith and contemplation, mix and match the DNA of divine new appointments until they take shape in service and praise.  Expectantly pregnant with incarnational ministries discerned through hearts brought together in union with Christ, the church waits for creative generations of Spirit-filled life to give these ideas living forms for a new generation, faithful to the gospel which does not change.

We hope and labour as co-creators with him.

This waiting in faith for the ‘something new’ to be birthed may move us through various terms of transition before it fully comes to pass:  days of feeling slightly upset with all the changes brewing in our body life together; days with upbeat nesting in preparation for the newness up ahead; days with downhearted testing in emotions and concerns which cause dis-comfort at the growing truth that nothing will ever be the same as it was in the past.

Forty days, weeks, or years offers us the perfect time we need to practice creativity in godly ways, to thrive and multiply grace upon grace without rushing what he is doing in and around us by his Spirit hovering near.  Here, as a brush in his hand, we let him paint the broader strokes of what might be.  Both thinking and doing whatever needs to wash in place to make a whole new wholeness from the mixing, swirling, blending of subtle tints of unity in diversity seeping across our collective page, we eventually give form together to the vision he gives in the day of his choosing.

A new day is coming, awash in his pure love informing everything we are and do.

Until then, while we make and are touched by messes as those who do not always wait on him in quiet trust, we rejoice because soft hues of good news regarding our coming deliverance have been hinted at from the beginning.  The Child of promise who makes all things right was born … right on time … to give us new birth, a new creation morning.

“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.  And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba!  Father!”  (Galatians 4: 4-6)

The day of Passover arrived.  Good Friday.  A day of brutal death for the author of life.  The sky turned dark.  Water flowed from pierced wounds, mingled with the Saviour’s precious blood, red and indigo blue.  Beat beyond recognition, formless.  But Sunday morning came when the mauves of deep bruising would turn to resurrection white, a completely new day in which we may be adopted as sons and daughters of God, re-formed in his likeness.

“Lord, the imagery of creation and birthing can be found throughout your word washed in colours of gift, blessing, newness, hope.  Sometimes when we wait through dark nights for the unveiling of your perfect plans, we wonder if they will ever become clear.  Evenings of empty arms or false alarms challenge us to retain hope that the morning of fulfillment is near.  We confess our tendency towards impatience.  Fill us with a quiet trust that all will be as it should be when dates of your design come due and are delivered with great joy. May we give ourselves wholeheartedly to you to bear your purposes through us, handmaidens of grace ready to say, ‘be it done to me according to your word.’ 

And for those weary ones in times of waiting who have laboured long in faith with no reward … either personal or church related … cause flutters of restored hope to to rise within bearing witness to the seed of life you are growing in them in Christ.  Help each one anticipate your goodness in the days ahead, learning to give the worship that is due to you, each day one day closer to the birthing of a new creation in full adoration of you.  Amen.”

Dried off and swaddled in blue, I held our firstborn grandchild early this past Sunday on the morning of his birth.  Resurrection Day.  The immensity of this precious form of blessing slowly sinks into my soul.  The mourning of Fridays now long past have been mixed with morning tears of Sunday joy.  …  a precious child is born.

Soft hues of good news.  There was evening and there was morning, a brand new day.

“This is the day that the Lord has made.  Let us rejoice and be glad in it.” (Psalm 118: 24)