Friday, January 20, 2023
Listen to counsel and accept discipline, that you may be wise the rest of your days. Many plans are in a man's heart, but the counsel of the LORD will stand. Proverbs 19:20-21
What If…
Suppose suddenly, you find yourself feeling a loss of fulfillment or emptiness with the routine or course of your life. Something is pressing you to change. It may be that there is a crisis in your life that destroys everything you thought was going to be the rest of your life. Loss of job, divorce, death of a spouse or a child, serious illness or other crises may cause you to want to quit or give up. The time is now to decide what you want – to lay down in defeat or to move forward into victory. Many of the major life changes that lead to a new future are forced from a change in our circumstances. (Job loss, death, divorce, child) Your life has changed without your consent or control, whether or not you like it. Now is the time to seek God and pursue the direction He has for you. The moments that will actually define us and create for us the future we’ve always longed for, are not those moments that easily integrate into our past, but instead they are the disruptive moments, the moments when we must choose between extending our past and creating our future. Your life may be different than what you expected, but it is not over!
Regardless of your season or your status, you can begin today with the benefit of past experience and the power of purpose. Don’t live in the past but learn from it. All of us have setbacks. We fail. There comes a time when we must move on with life. A part of your strategy in going forward must include pulling the curtains on your past. What you have experienced may not be failure, but if it is know this - God never intends for failure to be the end, but a beginning. Not only can you move into a new place, but you can pour into someone else’s life that needs your wisdom and support. Discipleship is a great way to take the knowledge and experience you have gained and help someone else grow. It is not just for new Christians either. There are Christians at all stages of their walk with the Lord, going through all kinds of life experiences and changes looking for someone who understands.
Change is usually not easy, especially for creatures of habit like us humans. Pain and disappointment are no fun, but they are survivable and sometimes uncovers the best in us. When you go through a life change and finally come out on the other side, you have a story to tell, a story to share to help others. It is your old story, but you are not the old person. You are a new person, with new direction, and new God given purpose. Share what He has done in you and in your life and walk alongside another who is there today.
Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another. Proverbs 27:17
