Simple.

I was chatting with my best friend and she said that sometimes she really desires to lead a simple life. While she is a very capable business woman, she said that being the woman with the big career is not what she wants. She doesn’t desire to climb the ladder or work the insane hours it requires. Instead, she wants the ability to sit and have her coffee, rather than drinking on the go.
This struck me because this is something I have felt. Something I have contemplated for long hours, hours both on the go, running here and there, and hours that were in fact over an afternoon cup of coffee; one that I drank sitting down.

One thing that strikes me about this chain of thought is that people, I believe wrongly, equate the simple life with someone that doesn’t “get out much.” A life pretty much spent in one place. Might you call it “a country life” or a life without things to attend to. Where we get these ideas is beyond me, for surely we are not getting them from the Bible.

I love the “ladies” that we find in the Proverbs. There is Lady Folly, who most of us know too well, resemble too much, or frequent too often. While she is the one to turn away from, doesn’t our culture tell us she is the beautiful one? And then there is Lady Wisdom, who culturally gets a bad rap and is seen as an old spinster in a black frock with a grey-haired bun on her head. Constantly pointing a finger and looking down her nose at you with beady eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses.

This is a quick tangent, but haven’t you noticed how the devil makes all opposites look attractive? As in, whatever is the opposite of a good thing he makes your flesh go, “I want that” and whatever God calls good he wants to make you think is totally stupid.

So the Proverbs give us ladies, and these ladies have things to say. One thing said that I have always found so counter-world is found in chapter 1, verses 20-22.

“{Lady} Wisdom calls aloud in the street, she raises her voice in the public squares; at the head of the noisy streets she cries out, in the gateways of the city  she makes her speech: ‘How long will you simple ones love your simple ways?’”

Imagine for a moment the busiest streets you have near your house, or the busiest streets you have seen in cities. What is going on there?
Do you see people running about? Travelling to and fro? Carrying things, buying things? Are they full of their own comings and goings?
And what does Lady Wisdom call those people?
Simple Ones.
And what does she call what they are doing?
Simple Ways.
The Hebrew word used here for "simple" means foolish or naïve.

But isn’t that what our lives look like? Full to the brim with stuff and comings and goings? Isn’t that what is touted as the right way to live, the way that makes you successful?

Remember, though, the devil believes in opposites.

Yes, that is what my life looks like, and I might be taking a gamble here, but I would bet a lot of your lives look like. I think this is what my friend was talking about. Running around doing stupid stuff.

I am no Sherlock Holmes, but in putting two and two together can it not be seen that our lives, the ones full of our own comings and goings, might be foolish? Might be naïve? Isn’t that what the Bible is calling them?

Why?

If this is the simple life, the one the world tells us to have, what is the issue with it?
I haven’t done a huge study on this, but my initial thought is that this lifestyle is the simple, foolish, and naïve one because…..brace yourself….it doesn’t actually accomplish anything.
Not really. And running around frantic doing all sorts of things which don't turn out to actually be anything worthy is stupid.
Most of the time, if we are telling ourselves the truth, it doesn’t do anything we are called to do.

Our hustle and bustle can give us money. Now I am a complete capitalist, I believe in it above all other economic systems, and I believe not only is it the most logical, but the most Biblical. We are called to have JOBS. We are called to EARN our living. Why? Because the Bible says that “if you don’t work, you shall not eat.” So jobs are good. But let’s be honest. Are we working to provide for our family and our futures and our daily NEEDS, or are we working to keep up with the Kardashians? Are you working to be a good steward of the money God has blessed you with; are you working for kingdom purposes? For things that aren’t foolish or naïve?

And I think outside activities are good, but how many of them have any qualitative value? The kind you will get to the end of your life and go, “Yes, that WAS a good way to spend my time”?

What other kinds of runnings-about do we do? Ask yourself who they are to impress. Ask yourself what in the world you hope to accomplish with XYZ and whether or not XYZ needs to be accomplished in the first place, or if it too is just an opposite.

Jesus says that he came “that they may have life and have it to the full.” Some translations will use the word “abundant.” Isn’t it something so God-like that he would be completely counter-cultural? He has called us to a full life, just not a life full of stuff that doesn’t amount to anything.
So what does God value out a life that has lived “full”?

Matthew 22:37-39; Jesus replied: “’Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

John 15:8; This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

Ephesians 2:10; For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

II Timothy 4:2; Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction.

Ephesians 1:17-19; I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe.

A life full of “running arounds” doing things that have no value—stupid things— is the true “simple” life. Because remember, the Bible says all of that is foolish and naïve. Don’t spend your life on things that don’t matter, wolfies! Don’t lead that kind of simple life! We don’t have that much time. Live for Christ a truly full life. And if it is to be a “comings and goings” life, then we better make sure we are coming and going on things that will get us a welcome homecoming on that day and hear the words, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

Runners.

With summer here it seems that my evenings are no longer my own, i.e. my usual blogging time is now taken with other things. Good things (for what sweetness of summer isn't just that--a sweetness?), but other things, nonetheless.
One of those things is biking. And every night, for a couple hours, there the roads and trails and pavements find me, looking at the natural world and chasing sunsets.

I apologize now if I post too many sunset pictures.
The other night I was just toodling along when I saw this guy:

And then across the road:

(Deer always come in pairs, btw. Whenever I am driving and one goes in front of me on the road I always say, "Where's your little friend?")

But with deer, after you have seen the above, then you no doubt will see this:

And this:

Why? Because deer are runners.
Deer run when they are afraid.
Was it hunting season? Did I have a gun? Were they in any kind of danger?
Negative.
But they figured, because others before me had been, that I was out to get them.

As I was biking away I was sombered by the thought that I think sometimes I am like a deer.
A runner, one who flees, at the first sign of trouble or issue, I just run. Because I am afraid.
Rather than facing it head on, or dealing with the problem----run. Call it an "escapist" if you want to be fancy, or call it someone with trust issues who closes themself off if you want to speak truth, it's all the same.
Now, don't get me wrong, I think there are definitely times to run. If the situation is unhealthy, if it's an issue of sin or addiction, whatever, you need to get out! My youth pastor in high school would say, "God will always provide a way out of temptation, and usually that way out is your own two legs."
Simple, but boy is it true. There is no room for excuses there, just walk away.

But about those of us who are runners. What if it isn't an abusive or unhealthy situation, or it's not an area of sin or temptation, and the only reason we are running away from whatever is fear? Unfounded fear.
Shouldn't we maybe stop running? Shouldn't we maybe know the truth more than that deer does, like the truth that God is our Shield. Protector. Provider. The One who Saves. The One who holds the world and our hearts and our lives. Shouldn't we maybe rest in his perfect love, the love that casts out fear (of man, situations, obstacles, death), and say, "This time I will trust that he is bigger than whatever I am afraid of"?
I don't want us to be "fearless", Wolfies, because I think there are a lot of things to heed with caution, but I want us to be brave, facing the unfounded fears for what they are: a girl on a bike ride rather than a hunter with a gun.

"In a Relationship."

Let’s talk relationships today, shall we? As in the boy-girl kind.

My bestie texted me the other day and asked, “Do you ever think about how much we are still like Eve? We’re so far removed, yet we’re still woven out of the same material.”
I wasn’t quite sure what angle she was coming at it from, so I responded, “Hmm. That’s an interesting thought...One thing I think of is that we so easily believe the lie that if we have a great relationship we would be content. But clearly from their life that isn’t true.”
Clever, I know, and she said that was exactly what she was thinking.
I pondered that throughout the day. Is it really true? I wondered. Can I still be like Eve? Can we still be like her? Haven’t we learned yet? Have you ever thought about that?

God made all the earth and then all the animals.

Then God made Adam.
But none of the animals were what Adam needed, so God made Eve; the crown of creation.
“Whoa, man,” you can almost hear Adam say (for isn’t that how we became called Woman? Huh? Let’s be honest….).
And they were perfect.
Adam and Eve were perfect.
They lived in a perfect garden, they had a perfect relationship with God, they had all the food they needed, there was no bad weather, no lions wanted to eat them. And have you ever noticed that there were no other people? Which means that they had never been wounded by anyone, which means that neither Adam nor Eve brought any baggage into their relationship.

Can you imagine? Being in a relationship with someone and neither of you have issues?

 As cliché as it sounds, Eve was the perfect woman, and Adam the perfect man. Everything all of us want or want to be.
But I’m not kidding. They were perfect. LITERALLY. Their relationship was PERFECT.
So what was the issue?

Welcome in the antagonist. The devil himself.

Let me ask you, what did the devil do; how did he cause them problems? Did he kill one of them, leaving one of them alone forever with no children? Did he give them baggage somehow?  Did he bring in another woman so Adam would cheat on Eve?  What was the tension? Did they fight a lot? I mean, aren’t these the things we are told make us unhappy in relationships, i.e. these are the problem areas?

Would you believe that he didn’t change anything about their relationship? He didn’t even change their circumstances.

The devil knew the only thing he needed to know (from personal experience):
Just change how they view God. That’s where the problems start. Take them from trust to doubt.

He was able to make them, the perfect ones in a perfect relationship, enviable of all future people on the planet, discontent.

Let’ back up a second. How is that even possible?

Don’t all of their circumstances added together mean that there shouldn’t have been any problem, because isn’t a perfect relationship the answer to all of our problems? Isn’t that how we are content? Everything in my culture tells me that!

So often I see people, especially those in my age bracket, the 20-somethings, running around like chickens with their heads cut off, all looking for “the one,” or better yet! Most of them are classically and all the time, “In a relationship.” Yet still searching somehow. Still frantic. Still thinking that a relationship, or a better relationship, will make them happy, will settle their heart, will change their life.

Have we not learned anything since the Garden?

See, the thing is that discontentment is the oldest trick in the book.

Satan didn’t have to come in and change their situations or give them baggage to make them discontent. He just had to get them to believe a lie, the same lie he gets us to believe today:
God is holding out on us. There is something better than where I am right now, and God is not giving it to me.

Genesis 3:4 “You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman.

Hold the phone! That in and of itself is enough. He bold-faced said to her that what God had said was not true.

What nerve!
But I fall for it every time.

Verse 5- “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

The devil told her that God was holding out on her.

And that was enough to make her discontent.
See, Adam and Eve had the perfect situation, the perfect relationship, so we can clearly surmise that that is not what makes someone content!

Belief in God at his word is what makes a person content.

But we are just like them! We believe the lie and we push and shove our way into places and relationships we think will make us happy, all the while collecting even more baggage, becoming more cynical in the process, and further giving ourselves evidence that God is, in fact, holding out on us!

He is denying us something we need, we think! Some might even go so far as to say it is something they deserve.
“Hello, God, I’ve been a good Christian! I’ve lived a clean life! I’ve waited! I held up my end of the bargain---your turn!!!” and we shake our fist in his face.
When we make that claim against God, on what grounds, besides our personal feelings, do we think that is true?

Psalm 84:11 No good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless.

I wonder what it would be like if you and I believed that truth more than we believe that he is holding out on us.

To those who are not living a lifestyle of sin (a blameless walk), no good thing does he withhold. Can we surmise then out of all of this that contentment comes not from a perfect relationship or situation (because Adam and Eve had that and it didn’t help them any), but in a firm belief that God will give “good” when it is good for us to have it?

With that lie comes wrongly equating that circumstances, and for those of us who are single- relationship circumstances, will be the key to not looking for other things to fill us. Eve had everything people who are looking for relationships think they are going to find: someone perfect, who doesn’t crowd their life with garbage, and who can live some beautiful life with them somewhere. But the thing is, it didn’t do anything for her.

Why?
Because she is just like you and me. And it wouldn’t do anything for us, either.
I want to know this truth. I have definitely known the lie.

 I hope this doesn’t come across as harsh, but I have to say it. For those of you in dire straits, desperately searching for some relationship to fill a void in you, hear me out in this: EVEN IF YOU FOUND THE PERFECT PERSON (and btw, sorry to tell you this, but that perfect person was ruined thousands of years ago in a garden), CONTENTMENT DOESN’T COME FROM A RELATIONSHIP.

Adam and Eve had the perfect situation/relationship! Did that make them content?
Nope.
Did that keep them out of trouble?
Negative.
Did that help them trust God more?
Not on your life.

We have got to STOP believing the lie that contentment comes from some relationship outside of our relationship with Christ.

That person you’re dating or hope to marry can’t save you.

If there was one thing I noticed the most when I was a wedding planner it is this: most people who are getting married somehow think the person they just exchanged vows with is their savior.

They met, and then they found happiness.

They met, and then their addictions stopped.
They met, and then life had hope again.
They met, and then they had a reason for living.

Standing in the back of those ballrooms, watching so many speeches all saying the same thing, I always shook my head, so discouraged that they had faith wrongly-placed. They thought they had found the springs of life. What a let-down it will be for them when the only thing they will eventually find in that person is a broken well.

For those of us who are, or who have been in the past, running ragged in search for someone to love you, Wolfies, we have got to stop believing that God is somehow holding out on us. What more could he possibly do for us?

Earthly love isn’t a love that can save you, and he already did that! He already gave us the love we need!

 If you take nothing else away from this post, take this: Having anything less than, or apart from, a relationship with Christ is exactly what we deserve. Anything in addition to a life lived with Jesus is gift. Him+Nothing is not God withholding! It’s God granting us more than we should have in the first place.

Idol-Temple Empires.

I have got me all of these thoughts this morning.
But I just can't seem to put them into any coherent words yet.
Rather than attempting to give you something I haven't yet gotten myself, and failing miserably in my attempts, here is a verse I came across yesterday.
Luke 16: 15. And he {Jesus} said to them, "You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God."

What is it we are chasing this Monday morning?

I think of all the things our culture tells me to run after, to achieve. Exalted things.
Money.
A rockin' body.
Relationships.
Success.
Notoriety.
A name for myself.
Connections I use for personal gain.
A set standard of living we are "too good" to live below.
Intellect.
Acts of "goodness" worth bragging about, or at the very least, worth telling others we did.

We all could add to the list.
Have you ever thought, though, that there is a good possibility the running after those is an abomination? That they, the exalted things, might in and of themselves be an abomination?
The word abomination means "Something horrible, something shameful, intense dislike."
Clearly God is going to intensely dislike something that is shameful and horrible for us. The word abomination is used in the Scriptures mostly in realtion to us having idols. Are we fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Eternal One, or are we running after idols, our temporal, functional gods?
Let's not take God's opinion lightly. Evaluate what it is you are chasing, wolfies. I don't want us to get before the throne of God and be told all of our lives were spent in not building the Kingdom of God, but rather in building an Idol-Temple Empire for ourselves.

They shaved their heads.

I love my hair. It’s long, dark, and curly. My mom calls it a mane. It has a lot of “bounce” to it.

I noticed the bounce especially over the weekend when I was at a wedding. All the pretty girls had all their pretty hair all dolled up and looking great. At the dance that night, as all the other girls were dancing, their hair would just kind of sway back and forth, hop a little bit now and again if they got really moving, but it all seemed very controlled. Very tamed.

Mine, on the other hand, could not have the same things said about it.
No.
Mine was….all over the place. Never what I would call “controlled.” More like organized madness (Which is probably why I am so fond of it).
I had it piled on top of my head with gobs of pins for the ceremony and dinner, but once the dancing started, well, that was the end of the coiffed bun and pins.
And then I couldn’t see anything clearly for hours what with my hair flying every which way, covering my eyes, and getting in my mouth.
As I said, it was….all over the place.
I’m sure I looked ridiculous. Luckily nobody could tell it was me…..because they couldn’t see my face.

While I will not say that most women love their hair, I will say that most women have a relationship with their hair. If our hair is feeling good one day, we will feel good that day. If our hair is not up to snuff, we will feel sick….or wear a hat. Our hair is our way of expressing ourselves, it is something that separates us from our peers, it is something about the way we look that we can easily change, manipulate, style, or control.  The Bible even says that a woman’s hair is her glory or her crown (I Cor. 11). For better or worse it is something that most of us feel defines us.

(Men, if you are reading this and are absolutely confused or bored out of your mind, feel blessed that I am giving you insight into the thoughts of women. And I promise I am getting to a point.)

When I was in Budapest I went to a Hungarian Jew Holocaust museum. It was harrowing, to say the least. I can’t see all of those pictures of people and objects that survived and not bawl my eyes out. Not mourn for their lost lives.

One picture I found particularly difficult to handle.

Take a good look at it.
Do you all see what it is?
Do you all know what happened?

THEY SHAVED THEIR HEADS.

Those are rows and rows of women. Women who had just been stolen out of their homes, taken away from their families, certainly some had watched their husbands or daughters or sons or grandchildren killed right before their eyes. They had been crammed into transport buses, or trains, never knowing if they would see any familiar sight again, and most of them wouldn’t. Not knowing what was coming. Fearing the worst and knowing that they had no idea how bad “the worst” was going to be.

They had gone through all of that, their homes, families, lives, dreams, and futures pried from their hands.

And then their captors shaved their heads.

And took with it the last shreds of their personality, differentiation, crown. Dignity.

Do you see the girl in the front row in the polka dot dress? The one too ashamed to show her face?

There was a courtyard behind this museum. Gorgeous.

On one side of the garden was a wall that had names of people followed by dates.

1893-1945
1912-1945
1904-1945

Anna Vidor

1921-1945

1921-1945?

But that’s only 24 years old. That’s pretty close to my age.

She was someone’s daughter. I am someone's daughter.

There is no doubt that she had dreams and plans and crushes on boys and all kinds of hopes for a house and babies and all the other girl stuff we think about. Pray for. Plan on.

She was like me. She was like all of my friends.
She was a 24 year girl.
Who knows, maybe she was one of the girls who had her head shaved, too.
If it was me, at that point I would have wanted to die.
What else would be left for me to live for? They had taken everything and then they had erased me.

When I see those women, those girls, in that picture, and their names with those dates on that wall, it puts things in perspective, doesn’t it?

How often do we complain about stuff? How often do we sweat the small stuff? How often do we take for granted the fact that like, I don’t know, maybe we still have a house, or, I don’t know, maybe we still have food, or, I don’t know, maybe we haven’t seen all of our family murdered before our eyes, or, I don’t know, maybe we haven’t had our heads shaved by cruel, cruel people?

Do we take that for granted?

I know I do.

I know I am guilty of thinking my issues and my problems, which in comparison are not issues and problems, are the end of the world. But after I see this, it gives me more of a perspective on what the true end of the world---the end of my world---might more closely resemble.

Everything taken away. Then a forced shaved head. With nothig you can do about it.

Having a reality check brought in by the outside world is good for me. It pops the “bubble” that I live in and teaches me that, unless I find myself in their shoes, I haven’t got much of a leg to stand on if I think I have something to complain about because, well…I still have all that crazy hair on my head.

Jubilee.

If anybody has known me for a period of time, they will most assuredly know I believe very strongly that adult women need to play dress-up more often. Life is serious. Serious things happen, hurtful things happen, damaging things happen; we need to be reminded that there is still good in the world. That there is still beauty to behold. That, in spite of our trials, hope will prevail.
With that, dress-up photo shoots are something that I practice with my girlfriends pretty often.
In honor of the Queen’s Jubilee, yesterday my sister-in-law (who was in town for the weekend) and I decided to celebrate: We set up a dining room table in a field and put feathers in our hair.

Happy Jubilee, your Highness. 60 years of doing anything is quite the feat.

Not quite one of those "fascinators" for the hair, but we do what we can with the articles in my closet.

I don't really like cats anyway, so a cat in my photoshoot will not be tolerated. You can see the cat's struggle here.

Whenever you wear this dress to a wedding you inevitably get asked to dance during the song "Lady in Red."

Definitely her paparazzi photo of the day.

My brother decided to join our little photoshoot!

Just in time for their anniversary.

Congratulations, QE2.

New Creations {A Journal Entry}

Lord, I haven’t been consistent lately in my time with you. Vacations and being on the go isn’t good for me. I always think I can run on fumes, but that isn’t true. I always think that since I have been a Christian this long my days shouldn’t need to be as dependent upon you as they seem to be. But, again and again I prove to myself that I am a desolate wasteland without you.

Hmmm. I have never thought about it that way before.

Without you, I am a barren place, full of only sand, dirt and tumbleweed. Blown along by the wind, evidence of desertion.

Funny, the word “desert” and “desertion” and “deserted” all have the same root word. Things that have been left alone become deserts.

Wow. What a picture. I suppose even the fact that you would take something or someone who starts as a barren wasteland and make it lush into a garden or a growing soul is a proclamation of your greatness. Goodness. You are unable to do anything apart from your glory and the declaring of it. And I love it. A life changed by Jesus is a telling of your glory. A telling of your love.

Before you created everything, I imagine it was desolate.

Doesn’t it say it was formless, void, and empty? It does.
But then you spoke and it teemed with life and vegetation and light and moving things.
You created us, in that glorious arena, and we, too, teemed with life and light and moving parts.

But then we chose to sin.

And you gave us what we wanted.

And we became again desolate.

We became again as we were before you spoke. Void. Formless. Empty. Spirit hovering over, but no longer IN.
We went back to the prior state- rendering us as if you had never spoken at all.

As if you had never touched.

As if you had left us alone the whole time.

When we sinned in that garden, in essence we asked you to leave.

And you did. Sort of. You made us back into what we were-when all was without you-VOID. DESOLATE. EMPTY. Because we asked you.
We asked you to remove your touch, your presence from our lives. And we were returned to whence we came.

See, what we didn’t realize is that YOU are the life and light and vegetation and moving things. In you we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28). So if we ask you to go, all of that leaves with you.

With you gone, all is desolate, void, and empty. Life ceases to exist.

We live on a deserted planet. Because we asked you to leave.

But again, you didn’t leave us alone. You saw our emptiness, the void in our eyes, the agonies of parched lands, and you came. AGAIN.

As I John says so poignantly: THE LIFE APPEARED.
This time when you came you spoke again and said to us, “I will make you a new creation again.”

But this time you didn’t have to start from scratch, you came to give us the opportunity of the Garden again, of life again, of light again, of growth again. You came to undo what we did, as much as could be undone.

When we sinned in that Garden, all was subjected to the curse of sin (Romans 8:18-22). Every flower and light ray and moving being. All was crushed. We all walk maimed now because of it. Every human being now has the need to be remade.

You being hung on that cross said for the second time, “let there be light” (I John 1:5-10). The Spirit will come back IN, now no longer just hovering over.

We can give you our curse! This time, rather than you giving us what we wanted, you will give us what we need.

II Cor. 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come.

Wow! All of the sudden that verse holds so much more meaning!

We are not a new creation, as if "new" means something that was just made right now; that just popped up for the first time. But a creation, as in the Creation account---AGAIN.

Jesus came to give us a re-do. About our choice that asked him to leave he came to ask, "Think you're ready to change your mind yet?"

We know the void. We know the “deserted” we asked for.

He came to reconcile that. The lost relationship. That we asked for.

He came to save us from that. The eternal separation. That we asked for.
He came to recreate that. The you and me with life in it. That we told him we didn’t want in us anymore.

THAT is what “new creation” means. Life before the first “mess-up” because every “mess-up” after that was just a murmur of the first.

 No wonder the devil hates the creation account! No wonder he pushes his “evolution” agenda so forcefully! Because without creation, Christians have nothing.

We can place no value in New Covenants (Noah, Abraham, David, Christ) because we had no original covenant. We have no concept of being a “new creation” because we had no first creation! Jesus’ coming, his SPEAKING on the cross. Speaking life into people, HAS NO MEANING, no restoration quality, no hope to it without creation. It is no fulfillment of promises without initial creation and the initial loss.

We talk about reconciliation and being reconciled to God all the time; it’s what Christians proclaim, but without creation, and without our Fall, what is there to reconcile?

If God didn’t back out because we asked him to, taking all of his life and light with him, then what is there to reconcile, to bring to life again, to make a new again?
Nothing.
Evolution says that Jesus didn’t make anything right by dying on that cross, by being raised again to life- the firstborn of new creations; the ones who have overcome death, who are no longer under that curse.

Wolfies, if you are a creation-again, put value in that fact. All the earth was waiting in expectation for you to be made new (Romans 8:19).