DON’T GET STUCK IN THE MUCK AND THE MIRE

Yesterday, we all welcomed a New Year. With each New Year, there are always hopes and plans for a better year than the previous ones. We make goals and resolutions to better ourselves, our family, our businesses, and then we hope that we will follow through with them.

Each year is a new beginning and a time to hit the reset button. I feel the same way about Mondays since they start a new week. When the new year comes, it’s like all 52 Mondays rolled into one new day and the biggest reset button of all. I hate looking in the rearview mirror, but at the beginning of each year, I look back at the highlights.

With each passing year, you will have highlights that are wonderful and unforgettable. Weddings, births, promotions, retirement, graduations, new homes, etc., are all growth events, and I love looking back at them because they bring joy to me. Almost everyone will also have events in the past year that are loss events. These can include the loss of jobs, friends, homes, dreams, and loved ones. Those events bring sorrow and hurt to us, and I try not to dwell on things that I can’t change.

Isaiah 43:18-19

¹⁸ “Forget the former things;
    do not dwell on the past.
¹⁹ See, I am doing a new thing!
    Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
    and streams in the wasteland.

When I read Isaiah 43 this morning, I thought it was the perfect verse for the New Year. Do Not Dwell On The Past! So many of us get caught in the downward spiral of the past, and we can’t see how to break free. You might still be holding on to a comment that hurt you when you were younger, but you need to learn to put that behind you to move forward.

When I was a child, still living at home with my parents, my dad would load us into the vehicle and head to the mountains. We had 4-wheel drive vehicles that we would go mudding in, and we had a blast going through mud holes, climbing over fallen trees, and driving on abandoned roads. Occasionally, we had to walk off the mountain because we took the vehicle somewhere that it couldn’t escape. It seems like we got it hung on a fallen tree once, and we might not have been able to get out of a mud-hole either. The thing about it is, you can never move forward if you are stuck in the muck and the mire.

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t have memories of the past, but you shouldn’t be living there. Continue to love, honor, cherish the good memories and learn to put the hurt and the sorrow behind you. The Lord is with you and will help you move forward a tiny bit each day. The Lord wants to bless you where you are, but He can’t find you if you are still living in the past.

The Lord is ready to do NEW things, and we need to be willing to accept His gifts. We need to pray for our eyes to be opened to perceive what He is doing for us. Our Father is faithful and good. He will be with you through the best days and carry you through the worst.

To God Goes The Glory!

Have A Blest Day!