I consider myself lucky.

I don’t need to be the umpteenth person to say that we are “living in unprecedented times” and “adjusting to the new normal.” If we’ve learned anything about COVID-19 in the past few months, it’s that we need to be just as diligent about combating it and living with it as it is about sticking around.

My final semester of college was marred with the stress and anxiety about what the “real world” and “adult life” would look like in the midst of a global pandemic, especially the prospect of finding a job when it was clear nobody was hiring. I watched my friends fill out countless job applications in the living room of my East Lansing house — our designated command center for the quarantine — while I stewed in hope for the job I had been in the process of interviewing for.

My employment offer at St Matthew, admittedly, induced a duet of excited cheers and sighs of relief. I had a job.

On the way to my first day of work, my old Volkswagen died on the side of I-96. That night I was fortunate enough to find a new used car that would soon become my first big-boy purchase. I unloaded a box of belongings into my new office that same day. I held my first gathering for a new group of high school students I would surely learn and grow alongside. I met new co-workers and got acquainted with a new church building, a new neighborhood and a new city all in my first couple weeks. Soon, I will move into a new apartment with new roommates to start another new chapter of my life.

After four years in my new home state of Michigan and a feeling of comfort in myself, my community and my town, I left to begin again, this time with a diploma in hand and a level of confidence only working in youth ministry can teach. If my past tells me anything it’s that I don’t always like new, but the inner beckoning to newness and the beauty that comes with it is hard to resist.

We see the topic of newness discussed over and over in scripture, especially by the apostle Paul. Perhaps there is nobody better to tell of the beauty of newness found in Christ than a man who spent a large portion of his life hunting and oppressing Christians before being transformed by the teachings and person of Jesus of Nazareth.

As Christians, we are called to remember that “just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4 ESV). We know that as followers of Jesus, we have new life and are considered “a new creation,” leaving past selves and our sins behind, for the “old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17 ESV).

Do we have the faith needed to believe this truth? In our current global and cultural moments, do we believe that the new we are faced with is for the better of each and every one of our brothers and sisters? Are we trusting God’s sovereignty and reign in a time when political, social and cultural critique might be new to us? Am I remaining faithful to my call as someone who is supposed to serve the Kingdom of Heaven and all of God’s people before any institution, especially in my new circumstances?

The shift the disciples must have felt after Jesus’ death, resurrection and ascension was likely filled with overwhelming uncertainty and anxiety. Though they had walked with and learned from the Messiah for three years, they were still making mistakes up until his death, like Peter, and even doubted him after, like Thomas.

The feelings of inadequacy we Christians can fall victim to in our calling to spread the gospel, though, are not new; instead, we get to hold fast to the power of Jesus and his never-ending mercies that “are new each morning” (Lamentations 3:22-23 ESV).

Peter’s sermon at Pentecost, speaking to a crowd of Jewish leaders from every nation, was the disciples’ first public declaration of faith after the ascension. With the other 11 at his back, Simon Peter delivered a sermon that showed why Jesus called him the rock on which he would build the church in Matthew 16.

After quoting the prophet Joel about the day of the Lord and noting to the leaders that they were the ones who killed Jesus, Peter declares God’s power with a reminder to what we believe about the Savior:

“God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it” (Acts 2:24 ESV).

It was not possible for the pangs of death to hold Jesus. That is the promise we cling to, the spring our newness of life flows bountifully from.

I go home and don’t dread the thought of pouring over text books, PowerPoint slides and handwritten notes. All this new free time, however, cannot be used for evangelism or telling students about Jesus due to the new restrictions on in-person gatherings. My new normal, regardless of coronavirus, looks a lot like promised uncertainty to me.

But I am careful not to miss the subtle and overt beauty I get to see in my newness. The Lord is present in the quiet, the slow and the mundane. I see his provision in a new place and with new people, and I’m starting to see it all in a new way too.

My email inbox is refreshed regularly. My phone can be picked up at any time. My office door is open.

I wait eagerly for new to become normal.