STARTING OVER

 

This new year, instead of making resolutions, which most of us aren’t that great at keeping anyways, maybe we should think more about new beginnings. Starting over is not the same as trying to redo a past failure, but it does assist you by keeping you from spinning your wheels on regret and frees you up to having  a new starting point. Wrong decisions and regret can become your roommates, if you let them. But, if you do, remember this about them. They can lord over, control your self-worth and can send downpours of self-condemnation on you if allowed to rest in the form of depression and regret. They seem to reach through time and space and in doing so, there seems to always be negative consequences that follow them. When a person ignores the signals or warnings in their own heart and makes a bad decision or wrong choice, it will always generate a certain amount of consequence that consist of some type of misery or disappointment and that is guaranteed. It is simply only a matter of when it comes, and how much. The effects of bad or wrong decisions may consists of an individual compromise of themselves, they are not getting what they want, they have to learn lessons the hard way, they feel that they have already blown it and it’s too late to turn back now, or they may have to go back and cleanup a past mess. But the most insidious and damaging effect is the feeling of having wasted a part of their life. At that point a person can feel hopeless and defeated as if there is no turning back. But friend may I tell you that there is hope.

 

This new year not only brings a new year on the calendar, but it also provides you with an opportunity to a new life if you approach it the right way. Your future is not governed by your past. By that I mean that no matter what your past has been, through forgiveness and repentance from those wrong choices you can change your situation by changing your way of looking at them. Once you honestly commit to changing, you have already begun the process. We humans are so prone to failure, yet in God’s eyes failure need never be final. God’s Word is full of examples of men and women making wrong choices, failing themselves as well as God. Yet most every time it was right slab in the middle of the “learning from those mistakes” process, that they found God and for those that knew Him already they knew Him deeper after they had walked through the lessons that they were forced to learn, from those mistakes. Once we let go and let God be and do in our lives as He pleases, we need not try and fix something, but simply by our letting go of it and trusting God for the outcome, our situation changes and our future becomes brighter, outwardly and internally. Make it a point this new year, to start over!

 

"Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart." Ps. 37:4

Loving on you today!

Bren

THE PAIN OF REGRET

A good definition for regret would be a personal dislike for a past behavior, act or choice that we may have made without seeking wisdom or possibly an unguided and willful decision made in haste or simply spite to another. It can be very painful to look back on those choices through the lens of our regrets and feel the weight of those wrong choices. It is then that we spin our wheels parked on the pavement of regret and haunted by what seems to be the backlash of torment in our minds of “what if”, “if only” and “I should’ves”. In my life I am still learning that short term pain oftentimes produce long term gain, if I will discipline myself in a matter to wait. The scripture says this about waiting, “But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.” Isaiah 40:31. You see our present choices will determine our future rewards. There is no escaping that fact.

 

The Bible warns that sin is crouching at our door in Genesis 4:7. The pull of sin is not picky, it cares not what wrong choice we make only that we choose to do the wrong thing. It is an invader that marches through our lives searching for an open door to enter. Those open doors can even be small cracks that we have started to open up by contemplating wrong choices. If we are not careful like the scripture says it will come in, take hold of us and even rule over us.  I John 5:17 says that all wrongdoing is sin. Through my years of counseling and from my own experience, I can assure you of this; while you may not die over a certain sin, the repercussions from that sin can cause such aguish in your heart and mind, that one may even wish for death. Yet death is not the answer for our pain or regrets.

 

For you see Christ is the answer. For he bore all our sin and takes away our regrets and sadness if we will truly seek Him on His terms, not ours! If it were possible for me to beg you to turn to Christ for I am persuaded that He is able to keep that which you commit to Him, I would. But, I know that all the begging in the world cannot persuade folks to come to Christ and be committed to Him. Yet in my love for you, knowing that there is power to help you overcome your situation, I will continue to make the effort to reach out and help folks in the only way that I know that truly works. In Christ we do not have to hold on to regret, and it matters not what others may think of us, for the peace that He gives us surpasses any logic that man offers and any judgment that man may make towards us. The only thing that does matter is that we learn from our mistakes and move forward with hope, making great effort to live a life that shows others the way to God. God Bless your upcoming New Year! May you find Him in the midst of all your struggles.

Loving on you today,

Bren

THE CHRISTMAS GIFT

 

Well over two thousand years ago, a baby was born in a tiny stable in the city of Bethlehem. We have come to think upon that birth as the Nativity. The story of the Nativity was and still remains a simple story. For it is the story of love, grace, compassion, mercy, forgiveness and restoration all wrapped up in a swaddling blanket; God’s gift to the world. A world that needed the very essences of what lay in that manger. The Nativity was not the beginning of God’s gift, the beginning was the very moment that God made a promise to His people that He would provide and make a way, even when they could not see a way to escape or overcome their circumstances of being burdened with trying to appease a Holy God by being Holy themselves. For they would struggle many years and bear many rules and regulations in trying to make emends for their wrongdoing through animal sacrifices to atone for their sin.

 

Yet, there in the manger, lay God’s answer to His promise that one day His children would not have to offer sacrifice or payment any longer for their sin. The birth of Jesus was not the payment for sin, but the opportunity to one day receive the free gift that His death would provide the world, should they respond to His offer. For it was not the baby Jesus that sacrificed Himself for us, but the fully grown man. While His birth provided the world with the opportunity, His death on the cross purchased us the right to become children of God. But there is still more to the story of what the life of Christ affords us than simply His birth, and His death. There is a middle part as well. The part about His growing up in a world of sin yet he lived His life, overcoming His surroundings and circumstances that came daily across His path. He lived in a world of sin yet, He overcame the world to show those that would one day be His that they too could overcome. The middle part of His life is the part that teaches us about the abundant life, which many will never know because they refuse to seek it. Instead they will give in and succumb to life’s trials and circumstances.

While He lived a life that set the example for us, it was another part about Jesus that is equally as important as any other and that was His resurrection and because of that, man now has the power that Jesus had to walk according to what God calls them to do and will one day stand without excuse as to what they did with the power offered them through the risen Savior.  That very word rose means grand things to us. It means that we can rise up as He did! Not only from our physical graves, but from our daily spiritual graves that we are faced with every morning as we rise to meet a new day. The most precious gift that you will ever have offered to you is a breath away, to receive it though, you must accept it! For no gift is really yours until it is received.  The gift is the gift of eternal life. Many people celebrate Christmas in their own way. However, for those that have been redeemed and know the power that lives within them, Jesus alone is the reason for their season.

Loving on you today!
Bren