By Gloria Wessner
With 2019 just blossoming, it makes me aware of resolutions and changes I’d like to make within myself. I’ve often wished I could somehow just get a new start. Sometimes it‘s because it’s been a bad day and I wish I could start the day over. Sometimes I meet a new person and get off on the ‘wrong foot’ with them and wish I could redo meeting them for the first time. A person may buy a new car and get into an accident almost as soon as you get it home, and it has enough damage that, even when fixed, it just doesn’t feel the same as when it was new. I bought a new three year old horse that was beautiful and didn’t have a mark on him; and a week later he had a run-in with barbed wire – he didn’t look quite so beautiful anymore.
Do you ever wish you could start life over and change some of those bad choices you made that affected you for life? I don’t mean starting over from babyhood; but wouldn’t it be nice to turn back the clock and change some of those choices?
We know that’s not possible; but there is a way to have a brand new start in life with a changed focus and a brand new heart. It is nothing I can do or drum up on my own; but God has totally thought of us and provided how we can have a new life – and it was all his idea because he loves us so much. Not only does God’s way fix the relationship between him and me; but it provides the way to repair relationships between me and others, too. There is a piece in his word, the Bible, which addresses this so well.
“Now we look inside, and what we see is that anyone united with the Messiah (Jesus) gets a fresh start, is created new. The old life is gone; a new life burgeons (is produced)! Look at it! All this comes from the God who settled the relationship between us and him, and then called us to settle our relationships with each other. God put the world square with himself through the Messiah, giving the world a fresh start by offering forgiveness of sins (wrongdoings). God has given us the task of telling everyone what he is doing. We’re Christ’s representatives. God uses us to persuade men and women to drop their differences and enter into God’s work of making things right between them. We’re speaking for Christ himself now: Become friends with God; he’s already a friend with you.
How? you ask. In Christ. God put the wrong on him who never did anything wrong, so we could be put right with God.” (2 Corinthians 5:16-21 The Message parenthesis mine)
What God asks of us is to believe this message about Christ, to ask him to forgive the wrongs I’ve done, and then ask him to be the head of my life so he is free to teach me. As I learn from him, he shows me how to live the right way (his way). I then have the rest of my life, however much time I have, to learn to love him all the more, and then out of that relationship with him I learn to live life with those around me. Just as my horse healed with some scars; he still is an awesome horse and a little smarter for his experience. Our lives, too, can heal with God’s touch on those things that hurt and eat away at us. With your new life in Christ, you’ll have a whole new perspective and God will help ‘make new’ those hurts and the suffering you have had in spite of the scars left by them. He is the specialist in healing broken hearts. If you would like to chat about any of these ideas, or things about God, feel free to email me at gloriawes@hotmail.com and I would be glad to visit with you.
May The Road
Rise Up To Meet You
May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face;
the rains fall soft upon your fields
and until we meet again,
may God hold you in the palm of His hand.
(traditional Gaelic blessing)
Happy New Year to all our readers !