Something New
This past Sunday was Groundhog Day, the day that a cute, furry, little rodent crawls out of his hole to let everyone know if there is going to be an early spring or six more weeks of winter. As it goes, if the groundhog sees its shadow, that means it is sunny, hence, six more weeks of winter, and if it doesn’t, that means it is cloudy, hence, early spring. Don’t ask me how that makes sense. It is what it is.
What we are looking at today, however, doesn’t really have anything to do with the Groundhog Day events and more to do with the Groundhog Day movie. If you aren’t familiar with it, it is a movie about a weatherman who is assigned every year to cover the Groundhog Day festivities in Punxsutawney, PA. This guy is a real jerk who doesn’t like anyone or anything but himself, and pretty much no one likes him either. He especially hates the Groundhog Day event. As it turns out, a blizzard ends up causing him to have to spend the night in Punxsutawney, and when he wakes up the next morning it is Groundhog Day again. He winds up getting stuck in a loop in which he relives the same day over and over again for something like 35 years, until he finally breaks free.
You have likely heard the quote “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” There’s another, similar quote “If I keep on doing what I’ve always done, I keep on getting what I’ve always gotten.” The idea here is that it’s insane to continue in the same action, the same path, and expect anything to be different.
In school, if you have a study routine, a certain time place, length of time, method that you use to study, and you are consistently getting low grades or grades that don’t match what you want to get, it makes no sense to continue to study in the exact same way yet somehow expect to get better grades. If you want something to change you have to change something.
I’ve recently discovered this in my running. For the past five weeks I’ve been running every day, and I just, this week, discovered that my phone has this thing called “Cardio Load” that it measures. I can set a goal, and my goal is to increase my fitness, and it tells me how much “Cardio Load” I should have every day to reach that goal. Basically, how hard my heart should work every day. I was surprised, when I found this, that it is incredibly difficult for me to reach this every day, not only that, but the “Cardio Load” I’ve been reaching is on the low end of maintaining fitness, bordering on decreasing fitness. How is this possible if I’ve been working out and running every day, which I wasn’t before. I’m not positive, but I think that it partly has to do with exactly that. Since I’ve been running every day, maybe at the beginning I was hitting my “Cardio Load,” but now, if I just continue to do the same thing I can’t expect to continue to see improvement. The level and type of exercise I am doing gets me to a certain fitness level, but it won’t do more. If I want to change, I need to change.
We see a similar idea in the Bible. In Proverbs 26:11 we read,
“Like a dog that returns to his vomit
is a fool who repeats his folly.”
If you have dogs then you’ve no likely experienced this first hand. A dog will puke all over the floor or yard, and then look at it as if it’s the most delicious meal in the world and eat it up. It’s gross really, but what Solomon is saying here is that people are often no different. No, we don’t eat our own puke, but how often do we repeatedly do something that is detrimental to ourselves, and somehow think it’s worth it or it will be different this time. When an animal pukes it is because there is something bad, something harmful, inside of them that they need to get out, so to then turn around and re-ingest it is the height of insanity or foolishness.
Yet, think about your own life. We’ve been looking at goals and improvement, at health and maturity and knowledge, at physical goals and spiritual goals, and something that is implicit in all of that, but maybe hasn’t been said, is that if you are moving toward a goal, you have to leave something behind. You have to change. You can’t learn and grow and mature and stay the same. You can’t improve and continue in the same habits and mindsets. Something has to change.
This is what happens in Groundhog Day. Phil relives the same day over and over again for 35 years, and, no, he doesn’t do the exact same thing every day, though I’m sure there were plenty of days that were very very similar, but his attitude and motivation for what he does is the same every day. He is selfish. He does things for his own pleasure and glorification, seeking to make himself feel and look good without a thought for others. There’s even a whole scene in which he tries, repeatedly to kill himself, with no luck, he just wakes up again on Groundhog Day, but even that is self-seeking. Things don’t start to change until he starts to change his motivation and his outlook on life, until he starts to think about others, until he stops returning to his vomit.
This is what God wants to do in and through us. In Isaiah 43:18-19 He says,
“Remember not the former things,
nor consider the things of old.
Behold, I am doing a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
and rivers in the desert.”
And in Romans 6:4 Paul says, “We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”
You see, God is not in the business of monotony. He is in the business of rejuvenation and newness. He doesn’t just do the same old thing day after day, but He does things that are new and fresh and exciting, and more than that He gives us newness. He offers a new life, a new heart, a new mindset, a new motivation, new passions, new purpose. He is laying a path before you to walk that is new and gets you out of the rut and opens up so many fantastic things for you.
However, for many of us, despite the fact that this newness is there, that it is available, we leave it sitting on the shelf. You may be stuck in some sin, whatever that may be, pride, anger, lust, etc… and you keep going back to it, like a dog to its vomit, knowing that it’s harmful, but thinking that maybe it will be ok this time, or maybe you think that you can get “just that close” without falling, even though you’ve fallen every time before, or maybe you don’t think it’s all that bad, and you just keep reliving the same Groundhog Day. It’s time to do something new.
Maybe you feel like you can’t quite break out of a mental or spiritual slump, and maybe you tell yourself and others that “I’ve tried everything,” but really, have you? It’s time to do something new.
Something new is not always pleasant, just as change is not always pleasant. It can hurt. It can be humiliating or humbling. However, just because we are used to the routine and the pain and the vomit that we’ve always known does not mean that that is what is best for us. It’s time to do something new.
God is doing something new: today, in your life. He is offering a newness of life, a break from the cycle, an escape from the vomit. Will you walk in it? Will you become someone new?
What we are looking at today, however, doesn’t really have anything to do with the Groundhog Day events and more to do with the Groundhog Day movie. If you aren’t familiar with it, it is a movie about a weatherman who is assigned every year to cover the Groundhog Day festivities in Punxsutawney, PA. This guy is a real jerk who doesn’t like anyone or anything but himself, and pretty much no one likes him either. He especially hates the Groundhog Day event. As it turns out, a blizzard ends up causing him to have to spend the night in Punxsutawney, and when he wakes up the next morning it is Groundhog Day again. He winds up getting stuck in a loop in which he relives the same day over and over again for something like 35 years, until he finally breaks free.
You have likely heard the quote “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” There’s another, similar quote “If I keep on doing what I’ve always done, I keep on getting what I’ve always gotten.” The idea here is that it’s insane to continue in the same action, the same path, and expect anything to be different.
In school, if you have a study routine, a certain time place, length of time, method that you use to study, and you are consistently getting low grades or grades that don’t match what you want to get, it makes no sense to continue to study in the exact same way yet somehow expect to get better grades. If you want something to change you have to change something.
I’ve recently discovered this in my running. For the past five weeks I’ve been running every day, and I just, this week, discovered that my phone has this thing called “Cardio Load” that it measures. I can set a goal, and my goal is to increase my fitness, and it tells me how much “Cardio Load” I should have every day to reach that goal. Basically, how hard my heart should work every day. I was surprised, when I found this, that it is incredibly difficult for me to reach this every day, not only that, but the “Cardio Load” I’ve been reaching is on the low end of maintaining fitness, bordering on decreasing fitness. How is this possible if I’ve been working out and running every day, which I wasn’t before. I’m not positive, but I think that it partly has to do with exactly that. Since I’ve been running every day, maybe at the beginning I was hitting my “Cardio Load,” but now, if I just continue to do the same thing I can’t expect to continue to see improvement. The level and type of exercise I am doing gets me to a certain fitness level, but it won’t do more. If I want to change, I need to change.
We see a similar idea in the Bible. In Proverbs 26:11 we read,
“Like a dog that returns to his vomit
is a fool who repeats his folly.”
If you have dogs then you’ve no likely experienced this first hand. A dog will puke all over the floor or yard, and then look at it as if it’s the most delicious meal in the world and eat it up. It’s gross really, but what Solomon is saying here is that people are often no different. No, we don’t eat our own puke, but how often do we repeatedly do something that is detrimental to ourselves, and somehow think it’s worth it or it will be different this time. When an animal pukes it is because there is something bad, something harmful, inside of them that they need to get out, so to then turn around and re-ingest it is the height of insanity or foolishness.
Yet, think about your own life. We’ve been looking at goals and improvement, at health and maturity and knowledge, at physical goals and spiritual goals, and something that is implicit in all of that, but maybe hasn’t been said, is that if you are moving toward a goal, you have to leave something behind. You have to change. You can’t learn and grow and mature and stay the same. You can’t improve and continue in the same habits and mindsets. Something has to change.
This is what happens in Groundhog Day. Phil relives the same day over and over again for 35 years, and, no, he doesn’t do the exact same thing every day, though I’m sure there were plenty of days that were very very similar, but his attitude and motivation for what he does is the same every day. He is selfish. He does things for his own pleasure and glorification, seeking to make himself feel and look good without a thought for others. There’s even a whole scene in which he tries, repeatedly to kill himself, with no luck, he just wakes up again on Groundhog Day, but even that is self-seeking. Things don’t start to change until he starts to change his motivation and his outlook on life, until he starts to think about others, until he stops returning to his vomit.
This is what God wants to do in and through us. In Isaiah 43:18-19 He says,
“Remember not the former things,
nor consider the things of old.
Behold, I am doing a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
and rivers in the desert.”
And in Romans 6:4 Paul says, “We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”
You see, God is not in the business of monotony. He is in the business of rejuvenation and newness. He doesn’t just do the same old thing day after day, but He does things that are new and fresh and exciting, and more than that He gives us newness. He offers a new life, a new heart, a new mindset, a new motivation, new passions, new purpose. He is laying a path before you to walk that is new and gets you out of the rut and opens up so many fantastic things for you.
However, for many of us, despite the fact that this newness is there, that it is available, we leave it sitting on the shelf. You may be stuck in some sin, whatever that may be, pride, anger, lust, etc… and you keep going back to it, like a dog to its vomit, knowing that it’s harmful, but thinking that maybe it will be ok this time, or maybe you think that you can get “just that close” without falling, even though you’ve fallen every time before, or maybe you don’t think it’s all that bad, and you just keep reliving the same Groundhog Day. It’s time to do something new.
Maybe you feel like you can’t quite break out of a mental or spiritual slump, and maybe you tell yourself and others that “I’ve tried everything,” but really, have you? It’s time to do something new.
Something new is not always pleasant, just as change is not always pleasant. It can hurt. It can be humiliating or humbling. However, just because we are used to the routine and the pain and the vomit that we’ve always known does not mean that that is what is best for us. It’s time to do something new.
God is doing something new: today, in your life. He is offering a newness of life, a break from the cycle, an escape from the vomit. Will you walk in it? Will you become someone new?
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