a fleeting, yet significant, moment.

Driving my car this morning, I had a moment. I mean, for a second, I just...got what "being made new" in Jesus means. Not that I totally grasped every aspect of the concept, or that I will ever be able to articulate the understanding to anyone again, but I just had a moment.

Have you ever had one of those? When everything about what is happening aligns perfectly... the song you're listening to, the activity you're doing... it's all perfect so that God can use it to help you just... get something.

Well this morning, I was driving my car--

this is the first thing that set the stage for the moment.

I crashed my car two and a half weeks ago.

The front end was almost unrecognizable... crunched metal,

broken plastic, parts jostled around under the hood, pieces leaking...

it was a mess.

But here I was this morning, driving a car that looked like nothing had happened.

Brand new headlights, all the parts were where they were supposed to be,

with a shiny, fresh coat of paint.

I was driving a car that had been made new.

So this morning, I was driving my car to school, listening to Andrew Peterson's song, "All Things New"--

here's the second part of the moment.

If you really want to feel like you were there,

you can click on this and hear the song.

But the main thing is that

"My Jesus makes all things new"

is repeated throughout this song.

So this morning, I was driving my car to school, listening to Andrew Peterson's song, "All Things New". I had been thinking about re-creation and redemption... and then the combination of hearing "My Jesus makes all things new" repeated while driving my car that had been made new just made things click. I had a tangible example of something being made new, something that had been re-created.

In that same way, Jesus takes us as we are broken and makes us new. We can be as broken, crushed, and useless as my car after I had crashed it... but Jesus still takes us. He can mend what's broken, fix what's wrong, replace what's missing... and He'll set us back on course with a new hope, a right thinking, forgiven sin, a Lord that we can trust.

"And He who was seated on the throne said, "Behold, I am making all things new." -Revelation 21:5a

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come." -2 Corinthians 5:17