FACING UP

Waimarino Bulletin, Volume 1, Issue 6, 12 July 1983, Page 8

FACING UP

New beginnings

by

F.

Eves

New beginnings for some of us are exciting and for others are dreaded — perhaps with reason. Some folk seem to be denied the bubbling hope of the unknown and see only the deprivations that may eventuate and are without the ability to master their situation in either hope or surrender to the inevitable. New beginnings are to be grasped like a greatly anticipated adventure by some. Turned into a roomful of strangers, one person will try to hide behind the furniture and become as inconspicuous as possible, while others. will courageously introduce themselves to as many people as possible and at the end find they have met and spoken with any number of interesting people, and in the process learnt a lot. One will carve a model farm out of a wilderness of scrub, and another will turn a humble cottage industry into a multi-million dollar business. All success is in the first move of someone willing to try something new. So often out of seeming disaster will come endless blessing — a twist or a turn in our circumstances that hadn't seemed right or possible — and we say: 'You know, it all turned out for the best.' Or, 'It was a blessing in disguise.' The thing is to look for the best in every situation and 'in everything give thanks to God'. It is not always easy to do just that, but when we do it seems to

have the effect of turning negative to the positive, changing a thing from bad to good. The Lord Jesus taught positively from Solomon's negative Proverbs on a surprising number of occasions. I remember reading some years ago the war-time story of Corrie Ten Boon when she told of when she and her sister were in a German concentration camp. They were shifted to a different block where the fleas were appalling, but remembering the Biblical injunction 'to give thanks always for all things unto God' they thanked Him for the fleas — and then discovered that because of the fleas they were virtually left unsupervised because none of the guards would come near them any more than was ab-

solutely necessary. They found they had unheard of liberties and the fleas were a real blessing. In Job 8.7 God told Job to remember that his begin- " nings were small and that God had made Job and given him all he had — and he was an extremely wealthy man. And when God makes a new beginning in a person's life and makes them a new creature He does a very thorough job of converting them into something fine and clean, fit for worship of Himself. So there is no need to be afraid of the turn in the road that leads to a new beginning when God says in 2 Corinthians 5.17 'If any person believes in Christ, he is a new creature, old things are passed away, all things are become new.'