Seasons of Life

Summer is winding down for most folks with kids going back to school soon, football season on the horizon, and summer vacations are in the books. It was a blur for most of us! And, so it is with life -- we rush through our "seasons of life" and wonder where all the time went -- we invested our time in one thing and another had to be put on the shelf or we invested time in things that mattered and we will have life long memories. 

Time is precious for once we spend it in one way, we can't get it back. We can't press rewind and have a do over -- a life mulligan. We have to live with what we have done and then move forward. 

This is a problem for many of us, including me. Looking forward is hard when the harsh realities of our time in the past keep tapping us on the shoulder to remind us what we should have been, should have done, or just to give us a guilt trip. A simple reminder to look to God and pray and then move forward is the way I try to deal with these rear view moments. 

God uses everything that we have been through to mold us into the person that He wants us to be. So, even if you could go back, would you? I wouldn't -- sure, my human nature tells me that I would change this or that, but when I really think about what I've been through and how it has changed my life, I wouldn't go back and change it for anything. God has taught me lessons that I would have never learned if everything had gone just like I wanted it to go. 

It's hard, but I know for sure that God has promised us much in Romans 8:28, "ALL things work together for good for those who love the Lord and are called to HIS purpose!" If I live in the past, I'm not believing the truth of this promise!

Today make it a priority to move forward after you have prayerfully considered the goodness and grace of God. I think you'll learn, as I have, that His plan is much better than anything I could have ever imagined.

Look up and then move forward ---

Under HIS Grace...

Chris

The Person God Wants Me to Be...

A few days ago I posted my daily GRACE-WORDS ....

"Allow God to change you from who you were yesterday to the person He wants you to be today!" © GRACE-WORDS

I have changed much in the past few years and this has been especially true over the past month. God is at work in my life and I want to honor Him by being the person that He wants me to be -- not the person that the world thinks that I should be.

My life has taken many twists and turns over the past year. I've had moments of excitement, times of agony, have been lied to, and my feelings have been dismissed. Like many of you, I have been liked and disliked, understood and misunderstood, accepted and rejected. 

The bottom line of all of this is that I cannot do anything about how others treat me except to be the person that God wants me to be today. That may be different than yesterday or tomorrow. I must focus on allowing God to work in my life today! 

We can't worry about being the person that the world wants us to be. It's not our job to please everyone or do everything that they want us to do. My role is to follow God's plan for my life. Simple, yet we've made it complex by adding in the human element of imperfection. We serve a perfect God who has a perfect plan. Why do we care about the imperfect world and its imperfect plan?

As you go about your day, remember that God has control and all the decisions you make should be influenced by Him. He may use others to help us, but I do not believe that He uses others to bring us down. If you place yourself in the center of God's will and give it ALL over to Him, that's enough because He's got your life in His hands!

That's a great place to be --

Under HIS Grace...

Chris