Repented Past

Image by Tentes from Pixabay 

Dear Lord, what is your message for me today? Will one of my devotions touch my heart or a nerve? Will my pastor’s sermon be your messenger telling me something I need to hear? Open my eyes and heart to the teachings of the Holy Spirit through whatever means you employ. I also pray that not only do I take your message to heart, but have the discipline and the courage to accept it and take the necessary action. Amen.

God heard my prayer and answered.

I’m reading through the Bible, taking a passage from The Old Testament, starting with Genesis, then one of the Psalms, starting with the first, and finishing with a reading from The New Testament, starting with Matthew.

Psalm 25:7: “The sins of my youth and my ignorances do not remember.”

The Psalmist is asking God not to remember his sins, but God is reminding me to forget them as well.

As I posted in No Fishing, once I’ve repented and cast them into God’s Ocean of Forgiveness, there’s no fishing. I’m to leave them there. But I often reel them back in, like I did this morning.

I woke with the usual detritus swirling in my mind, repenting — again — for past sins (and some recent ones). I’m better at getting off that merry-go-round, but I can’t seem to stop from getting on in the first place.

  Maya Angelou said it well. “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”

Maya’s words resonate. Once I know better, the chances of repeating some of my past mistakes are less. I can at least let those go. As far as the new ones? I must ask God for his help. I’m too weak to resist them on my own.

Thank you, Lord, for your continued compassion. You could have left me wallowing in my guilt, but you reminded me you have forgiven my sins and that I also need to forgive — and forget — my repented past. Amen. 

A New Thing

As I mention in an earlier post, I am often tempted to recount the dramatic and amazing things God had done for me in the past, the dreams, premonitions, and visions. Those powerful events have tapered off, replaced by more subtle interactions. I’ve wondered why.

Our Daily Bread meditation for March 13 gave me some insight into the change.

God wants us to recall the former, but He doesn’t want it overshadowing his current involvement in our lives. “See, I am doing a new thing. Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a new way in the wilderness.” Isaiah 43:19.

My faith is stronger, deeper, and God no longer needs to orchestrate the theatrical to get my attention or bolster my beliefs.

The same can be said of prior pleasures, mistakes, or pain, remembered on occasion, but not relived. 

Today is a new day. God is doing new things.

Dear Lord, thank you for your divine intercessions, the subtle and the not so subtle. They draw me closer to you. Amen.

Stretching Forward

Photo by Wesley Souza at Pixels

The devil slinks in and whispers lies when we are the most vulnerable. “No one likes you. You’re rude, selfish, and self-absorbed. Remember what you did back in 1971?”

And on go his accusations.

He wants us to weep for things lost, hang our head with remorse for every mistake we’ve made, and continue yearning for things that might have been, but cannot be. This keeps us from focusing on God and his eternal, unbroken love for us. The devil doesn’t want us to accept God’s forgiveness and move closer to Him. He wants us to remain broken, sorrowing, hopeless.

A death in the family is a low point. Not only do we sorrow for the one we lost, we are acutely reminded of our own mortality, especially if we too are in our so-called golden years. There is more behind us than ahead. At least that is what the devil wants us to believe.

That may be true of life here on earth, but not so of our next life. It goes on for eternity and in less vulnerable moments, we remember that.

St. Paul has a remedy. “For one thing I do: forgetting the things that are behind and stretching forth myself to those that are before.” Phil 3:13.

I like the imagery of stretching forward rather than leaning backward. No one cares what mistake I made back in 1971, especially God. “As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our iniquities from us.” Psalm 103:12.

The only exception to looking back is counting all of God’s miracles in our lives, recounting our blessings, and remembering loved ones.

Otherwise, as St. Paul also stated, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.”

Stretching, reaching, moving forward with our eyes fixed on God and everything else falls into place. Sounds like a life well lived.

It's That Time of Year Again

This is sunrise from my office window, dawning a new day, a new month, and a new year. Was it a good year? Did I do what I had hoped, what I had planned?

I have to say it was a good year in terms of memorable events. Two more grand babies were born, one in June and one in September. Then in August the biggest life change, retirement.