SECOND LIFE

It was once a dying railroad town, but today Leavenworth in Washington’s Cascades swarms with tourists enjoying the vicarious experience of a Bavarian shopping center. Nestled at the foot of forested mountain foothills, it’s a picture-perfect place with an alpine-village ambience. Shop after shop on the main streets sell souvenirs and food. One recent day we enjoyed the “food” (thanks to a gift certificate). As I looked down at the main street from our second-story eating perch, I thought of the vision (and sweat equity) that turned a dying town around.

Not that there aren’t problems. Housing is expensive, as you’d expect in a tourist-oriented location. Traffic? Yes. Sometimes smoke hangs in the air from Central Washington fires. But it still embraces the “dream escape” to a European village that most will never be able to visit overseas. As a member of the “Sound of Music” generation, I have enjoyed the ambience of this Bavarian-ish town just a half-hour drive from ours. And yes, it capitalizes on that classic film musical with an annual production on an outdoor stage with a breathtaking mountain view. It’s almost magical as the star playing “Maria” twirls and sings “The hills are alive” with Washington’s almost-alps in the background!

In many ways, it’s a parable of how God takes us—dying, neglected, unwanted—and gives us a new and vibrant life. Sometimes I’ve shared these verses with discouraged people who need something to hang on in their hopes for something better:

Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up, do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland. (Isaiah 43:18-19)

This comes from a passage of reprimand (for the people abandoning God) and hope (that He can and will restore the now-sin-ragged nation). Some day, God says, things will get turned around for “the people I formed for myself that they may proclaim my praise” (v. 21).

The late Bill Bright, a beacon among recent Christian leaders, blanketed the world with his condensation of the Gospel message, known as “The Four Spiritual Laws.” The first: “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.” The other “laws” trace how we have failed to love God, and His plan for reconciliation through Jesus Christ. Without Him, we’re like rundown, dying villages, cloaked in a dark cloud of  grumbling and discouragement. His perfect plan for us is so much better than anything we could concoct. His “rehab” program is not a cultural reproduction, but a spiritually transformed life that makes “renewal” a reality.