Monday, January 25, 2016

A New Person

Have you ever wanted to restart your day? 
You woke up late, something went wrong, and you just want to rewind so that you can get it right. 
Or maybe it is not the day you want to restart but perhaps the year. If you had known from the time the ball dropped on January 1st, 2016 entering into the new year with joy and gladness that every moment afterward would be a downward spiral... would you want to go back and fix it? To know when the errors or mistakes were going to happen so that you could prevent yourself from the pain or even just the hassle of cleaning up your own mess?

I wouldn't say that's exactly how the past 25 days have been for me but you could say I've had a lot of those days where I wanted to redo some moments and prevent mistake. We all know from experience this is not actually possible. As much as we want to change our past all that can change is our attitude.

Romans 12:2 says, "Don't copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God's will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect."NLT
The brain is a funny thing. When you decide that you are mentally going to make this day better, you are taking a huge step in the right direction. We must remember God knows what He is doing, and when something goes "wrong", there may be a reason for it. There is not a definite way of knowing every reason for every single thing that happens. However, we can know that through different trials in our lives ultimately God lets them happen to show us our need for Him. 

Sure, I would like to redo some moments but when I really think about it, I know I can learn from those, and call out to God for His grace to do better next time. I see my need to rely on Him. When I don't know where I'm going in life, if I am in the right major for my degree, or what job I should look into, I can remember Romans 12:2. That I should not mimic the behavior of the world. In fact what the world is concerned about should not concern me. I have authority and stability in an unchanging powerful Savior. Instead I can let God transform me into a new person. Then I, "will learn to know God's will..." for me, God's will is good and pleasing and perfect. Beyond all belief, I can rest assuringly that when He directs, it is without fault.