How many of you have ever wanted to start over, begin again, get a fresh new perspective in life? Surely all of us have felt that way at one time or another. Many of us maybe more than once! We feel like we're on a roller coaster, a merry-go-round, a tread mill that's stuck and can't be stopped, or some relationship that keeps us hanging on to the old ways of doing things and seemingly forbids us from moving forward, leaving the pain and suffering, the problems or insurmountable issues behind us.
Well, I'm here to tell you there is hope for a new beginning! But more about that in a little bit.
For me, this blog and another that was started a year ago ( http://ivegotconfidence.com/ ) are new beginnings I guess. I was just plugging along, living my life as best I could from day to day, struggling financially, physically, spiritually, yet knowing there had to be more.
I've long thought that I must be created for some good reason, some better purpose other than just barely making it through life, but never could lock on to why. I can remember thinking in high school, and actually verbalizing to a friend in biology in freshman year, "What are we here for?" I figured if anyone would know she probably would because her sister was a nun somewhere overseas. Her answer, which I don't even remember, didn't satisfy me in the slightest. So, I continued to wonder.
Some years later, after high school, I was to find out more about new beginnings and gain insight as to the purpose of my being on this big rock we so lovingly call Earth as it whirls around through space and time.
Although I'm sure it probably started long before this, I like to think it all started with a a friend's church-hosted ice cream social. Innocent enough, I suppose. But during the course of that "social" I met a few people from a different church, also invited by my friend, that literally would become life long friends and closer than flesh and blood siblings. They all changed my life forever!
As a result of that encounter, I would be invited to Bible studies, prayer meetings and so forth. The subject under discussion at my first Bible study "coincidentally" was tailormade for my interests, which at that time included the occult, ouija boards, stranger-than-fiction stories, mediums, supernatural events, and the like.
My interest in them, fortunately, was not too well developed and serious, but rather a curiosity more than anything. The thought of becoming more intimately involved in that sort of thing repulsed me and I think I sensed that pursuing the occult further could lead down a dark hole from which I might not easily be extricated. The memory of a phrase heard in childhood: "curiosity killed the cat" kept me from delving too deeply.
I remember distinctly that we discussed Deuteronomy 18, sharing God's opinion of the occult, mediums, astrology and the like which fascinated me because I had no clue that God even had an opinion about such things. But, as I was to learn later, He is intimately involved in loving, warning, and protecting His children from everything that could potentially harm their eternal souls.
That evening on the ride home I was given the opportunity of a lifetime! You can personally know the Creator of the Universe--God Himself, through Jesus His Son. "Can I pray with you right now to receive Jesus into your heart?", my friend's friend said. "Uh, no, I think I'll do it by myself" ..I said. She said "Ok." and I made my escape from the car and into my house. There, I knelt by a chair and said a prayer, the only words of which I can remember were "God help!" New Beginning? It was for me!
Everything from that point on, at least until I began to take God for granted, was fresh and new. The grass was greener, the sky was bluer, He was real and living in me. As the scripture says, "Therefore if any person is [ingrafted] in Christ (the Messiah) he is a new creation (a new creature altogether) the old [previous moral and spiritual condition] has passed away. Behold, the fresh and new has come!" 2Corinthians 5:17 The Amplified Version
The key that I've found for starting over, beginning again, is going back to the beginning where it all started. He was there in the beginning, you know. You will find Him there, waiting for you to ask Him to help you to start over, begin anew, afresh, maybe for the first time. Maybe for the second or third, fifth, or hundreth time. It doesn't matter. But, if you are needing a new beginning, like I have been many times since that first time, Jesus is the key! After accepting that, repentance is next, for truly we cannot begin again without realizing we've blown it on a myriad of levels, and then make things right with Him. For ultimately, it is God that we have offended by our life choices.
Do you need a new start? If you have never accepted Jesus as Savior and Lord, I challenge you to take that step. If you have received Him a long time ago, but got lost in the muck and mire that is our world, go back to the beginning. Ask Him to help you begin again, only this time with Him as the Boss. Let me know how it goes. I'd love to celebrate with you!
A New Beginning is waiting for you!
