I have to be honest and say that I love the season of fall....but with it comes least favorite time of the year….football season. It is a time when families are divided by loyalties to a special team of choice and hateful things are said. I live in Alabama and from the first game of the year until the National Champion is decided all you hear is Auburn this or Alabama that. Now I am serving a church where I have a Florida die hard and my husband Frank is an FSU die hard. Sometimes it is enough to make me want to stick my head in a hole and wait until it is all over but the crying. One of my dearest friends becomes an incredible snotty person from September until the season ends. My theory of the game is that on any given day….any given team can win….or lose. The whole concept is….is that it is a game. Which brings me to my story for today….In the opening game of the 2001 football season, a mistake by the University of Colorado cost the team a chance to play for the national championship. When coach Gary Barnett was asked about it, he said, “We don’t think about it. I learned a long time ago: Don’t trip on something behind you.” Barnett was busy recruiting new players and preparing for a holiday bowl game and had no time to dwell on the past.
What a great concept. We all
do need to live in the present. But what about the mistakes we deeply regret? How
can we deal with past sins and failures that still weigh us down? Oswald
Chambers, speaking of the sadness of what might have been, said: “Never be
afraid when God brings back the past. Let memory have its way. It is a minister
of God with its rebuke and chastisement and sorrow. God will turn the ‘might
have been’ into a wonderful culture [source of nourishment and growth] for the
future.” The
psalmist asked God to search his heart and see if there was any wicked way in
him, so that he might confess it and be forgiven. Then he added, “Lead me in
the way everlasting” (Psalm 139:23-24). I have made many mistakes in my life....and will probably continue to make them. The cool thing is that God
does not want us to be imprisoned by yesterday, but to be free for today and
tomorrow. Why? Because Calvary
covered it all, my past
with its sin and stain; my
guilt and despair Jesus took on Him there, And
Calvary covers it all. —Taylor I have
found through my life experiences that brooding over the past paralyzes the present and bankrupts the
future. I don't know about you....but I think I would rather stop that cycle and enjoy life to it's fullest. I want to be a winner....not a loser.
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