New Beginnings
Have you ever come home with leftovers of a really good dinner, that was really delicious but with portions large enough to have you planning a reprise for brunch the next day? Then you get home and forget to put it in the fridge? You wake up the next morning, a little bit later than usual, very much hungry and find yourself eying the to-go box on the counter, wondering if you can heat it back up to being good to eat again. Umm ... yeah, I have done that on occasion, depending on just what dinner was. Quick disclaimer - Don't ever ever do this with seafood or you may end up in the E.R. after some really crazy .... (you know what to put here).
I recently made a comment to a friend that if it is pizza, you can probably get away with it but the truth is - it is never any close to being as good. I may be hungry enough and maybe just lazy enough (sometimes it's being low on groceries) to where it seems to work out pretty well. Once the food had gone bad however, you cannot cook it back to being good again. It's just not going work. You may not get crazy sick from it but it is going to taste nasty.
All of that rambling was to get to this point - there are some leftovers in our lives that we may need to take a good look at and perhaps throw out rather than trying to "cook" them into being good again (and that is if it was ever any good in the first place). I don't know what shape or form it takes for you, could be habits, liaisons, lifestyle, projects ... perhaps even work. I know I have my fair share and as I grow in my walk with Christ the layers keep getting peeled away and I see things that I am still holding on to that really should have no place here.
In his preface to "The Great Divorce", C.S. Lewis wrote -
"A sum can be put right: but only by going back till you find the error and working it afresh from that point, never by simply going on. Evil can be undone, but it cannot 'develop' into good. Time does not heal it. The spell must be unwound, bit by bit, 'with backward mutters of dissevering power' - or else not. It is still 'either-or'. If we insist on keeping Hell (or even earth) we shall not see Heaven: if we accept Heaven we shall not be able to retain even the smallest and most intimate souvenirs of Hell."
Borrowing from a friend's prayer at the start of the year, my payer for us as we start this New Year is that God gives us new beginnings. That His grace will work in our lives to give us the discernment, conviction, discipline and peace we need to let go of the things that we need to leave in the past; and walk with Him into the newness & joy that He has in store for us.
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
Happy New Year!
Deji.