Our Tomorrows and Restoration
Your past is your past. We all have one of those. Sometimes it nips us in the rear end. Your soon-to-be-past is determined by what you do today...and all the today's after that. We live day by day. "My soul still remembers and sinks within me. This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope. Through the LORD's mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. 'The LORD is my portion,' says my soul, 'Therefore I hope in Him!' The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him. It is good that one should hope and wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD." (Lamentations 3:20-26) I once, in a family court, lost the only thing that mattered to me: my little girl. I left that courtroom, went to the rest room and looked at myself in the mirror and I said, "I always want to see a good man looking back. That little girl will need a good man in her life. I'm gonna be that for her." It was a rough road. I didn't have Jesus yet. (Most of those reading this do have Him!) Later I received the Lord and He saved me. Over time He taught me. I did my best. When I messed up I repented, got up...and tried again. I let the Lord clean me up. I was as much a part of her life as I was allowed to be. Now, and for the last 15 years especially, I have my little girl back. She's a beautiful, accomplished, sound young woman. I have open access to her, her awesome husband and their 2 little girls. God's mercies and compassions are new every morning. EVERY MORNING there is something new from Him.
We all have lost something over the years. So...we grieve over our losses, let Him heal our broken hearts, let Him ease the pain over what we could have had but don't have now....and we resist the devil's temptations to beat ourselves up over what we could have done better. We live good, clean, productive lives. We worship the Lord in how we live....every day. "Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 3:12-14 - NASB) Part of what lies ahead for us is God’s desire for the eventual restoration of the relationships God intended for us...even those temporarily interrupted by our own sin or the sin of others.
Some of us are experiencing this. Some of us will.
We can never lose hope. God is always up to something restorative. The story is not over. Let’s participate in it....God's way. I hope this is encouraging to you today.
Pastor Mike McInerney
Mike McInerney Ministries, Inc.
Decatur, TX
© November 13, 2018
(For use with permission)