Day 23: Jesus is Making All Things New

Then the one seated on the throne said, “Look, I am making everything new.” He also said, “Write, because these words are faithful and true.” Then he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will freely give to the thirsty from the spring of the water of life.” REVELATION 21:5–6

ONE NIGHT, WHEN MISSY was eight years old, she pulled up a stool next to me at the kitchen island where I was working on my laptop and said with precious resolution, “Mama, I’m ready to give my heart to Jesus now, so will you help me?” Of course, I wanted to jump for joy and run laps around the yard while bellowing, “My baby girl is launching herself into the arms of Jesus RIGHT. NOW. y’all!” Thankfully, the Holy Spirit nudged me to dial back the zeal a smidge, so I didn’t sully her precious sincerity! We talked for a while before I had the incomparable privilege of praying with my daughter, whom I don’t remotely deserve, to give her heart to Jesus. And I would probably still be in the honeymoon stage of that moment had it not been for what she declared immediately after she said amen, which was: “Mama, I’m so happy I gave my heart to Jesus, but I don’t want to get baptized yet because I don’t really understand it.”

I was a tad flustered by her admission, but after I mulled over it for a minute, I realized how wise Missy’s hesitancy was and I assured her the Holy Spirit would let her know when the time was right. A few months passed before she declared herself ready to be baptized, which she then qualified with the enthusiastic proclamation: “And Momma, I want to be baptized IN THE JORDAN RIVER!”

I was so tickled by her animated innocence—and the fact that the significance of the Jordan River mattered to her—but I thought: Yikes, a trip overseas to Israel for her baptism is a lot more complicated than scheduling it with our pastoral care team at church! Of course, I didn’t share that with Missy because I didn’t want to pour cold water (no pun intended) on her newly awakened spiritual passion, but I secretly wondered how in the world I could make a dunk in our local baptistry as meaningful to her as a trip to Jesus’s baptismal site.

But wouldn’t you know it, a few days later I got an invitation to help lead a tour of Israel with Lifeway because more people than they expected had registered for the trip, so they needed a second Bible teacher! Truly, only God. And it just kept getting better! Because we already had another international trip preceding the Israel tour, Missy and I ended up arriving in Jerusalem a day and a half behind everybody else, and the very first holy site we were able to join the group at was the Jordan River! Plus, we didn’t intercept them at the lovely, touristy setting on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee part of the river either; instead, the timing and itinerary worked out for us to rendezvous with the tour at the spot below the southern shore where the Jordan basically bottlenecks before it flows into the Dead Sea. For context, this is the spot where that stream—arguably the most symbolically significant water in the entire Bible—is muddy due to agricultural runoff and perhaps just a teensy bit of sewage, according to recent reports by advocates for clean water!

Partly because she was exhausted from the twenty-three hours of travel it took for us to get there, and partly because it was cold and rainy, but mostly because that brown water looked so nasty and uninviting, Missy began to backpedal regarding the enthusiastic proclamation she’d made months before about wanting to be baptized in the Jordan River.

But after I explained that even though it wasn’t the picturesque site most tourists get baptized in when they visit Israel, it was the very place that the Israelites crossed over the Jordan into the Promised Land after forty years of wandering around in the wilderness; and it was the very place where God sent a supernatural Uber chariot to whisk Elijah into heaven; and it was the very place Johnny B baptized Jesus and God’s Spirit descended like a dove fluttering down to seal the deal while the Father bellowed, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well-pleased” (Mark 1:11), she ultimately relented and let me dunk her all the way under while an enthusiastic crowd of onlookers from all over the world celebrated with us! Watching her come up out of that holy water, shaking droplets from her beautiful curls, made every dark night and dry season of waiting for a miracle absolutely worth it.

During this middle season, between the “already” of Jesus’s first coming and the “not yet” of His second, we must not forget the fact that Jesus is still actively involved in the process of redemption . . . of making all things new.

• WHAT UNFULFILLED hopes and dreams are you still waiting on for God to “complete”?
• READ PHILIPPIANS 1:6, James 5:7–8, and Revelation 21:1–4. How can these Scriptures help you hang onto Jesus’s promise about making all things new?