Time capsules

While at the Family Reunion last week, my sister passed out pieces of paper with questions and fill-in-the-blanks. At the top it read, TIME CAPSULE, and apparently our written musings will be buried and then resurrected in 10 years time. She brought a colorfully decorated oatmeal canister for this burying/storage purpose, and so after we each wrote our answers, we were instructed to roll them up and put them in.

I had a terrible time with this activity. I just could not imagine what I would want recorded and reopened in 10 years. Now some of the blanks were easier to fill – favorite books, favorite movies – but even then I knew I had so many things that I marvel at, the thought of choosing one or two was daunting.

Others were impossible. “Tell us something about your current self.” I stared blankly at my page, even attempted to copy off my Aunt Ruth’s paper, but if I had plagiarized and written, “I love to do crafts and Siamese cats” it would have been an outright lie, so I went with, “I am currently great looking, thin, well-educated and easy to get along with.” It’s important to be truthful when capsulizing.

I’ll admit my answers were lame, and after I stuffed my paper into the Quaker Oats can, I took some time to consider the future. It was more than wondering who would be at the next reunion (would there be more children? Less loved ones?) it was a deep consideration of Jesus’ words, “Behold, I make all things new” (Rev. 21:5).

It really isn’t okay to stay the same. If, when our time capsule is opened in 2019, we are all exactly as we were last Saturday something will be terribly wrong. Jesus is making things new, He is changing and restoring me and His world, and by definition it means I should be different in some profound ways by then. I should be even more like Him as He reconciles who I currently am with who He intends for me to be.

When I pastored the 20somethings at our church, I used to tackle this issue like this:

Sometimes I think that we have a Friday Night Self and a Sunday Morning Self. Friday Night Self is outrageous and anything goes whereas Sunday Morning Self is a pretense of self-control and loveliness with others. We resist church (or what we view as the hypocrisy of it all), and the things of God, because we view the gap between our two Selves and we think, “I could never make the huge leap from Friday to Sunday.”

But the truth is, God isn’t asking us to. Yes, there are choices and bad decisions that we make on Friday that God wants to redeem, because often those choices hurt us and others. But He’s not much interested in the Sunday pretender either. What God really longs to do is to reconcile the two Selves midway – help us make better choices AND be a terribly honest and imperfect person too. That's why He bridge the gap between Friday and Sunday - death and new life in just three days.

Maybe you do not have a Friday Self and Sunday Self, but I’d venture to guess there are parts of you that seem impossible to fix – or perhaps you simply want the comfort and security of staying the same.

Time to capsulize. Write down the truth about who you currently are (a journal, a notebook, whatever) and start to cooperate with God. Don’t bother with the oatmeal canister because change will come in far less than 10 years. God can’t wait to start working.