My first blog of 2011!!! So sad, since it's almost the end of February. 2010 ended with a BANG! and the BANG has continued throughout 2011. God has been guiding and changing me. That's the BANG! My cup has been overflowing, and I know that I haven't even been able to acknowledge all the blessings that God has given me.
What has been amazing has been the small things. Let me explain. Even after a week of reading about the effect that our thoughts have on our lives; I let the devil use my thoughts to get me down. I started thinking about my past and how it seems that it'll still burn into my future. I felt myself getting seriously down about choices and decisions that I've made so long ago. Praise God for the Holy Spirit; I was encouraged to get out my Bible and Sabbath School Lesson. Now, in the morning I thought I had read the lesson designated for the day, but as I opened the lesson I saw that I had read a prior lesson (clearly I'm behind on this week's lesson). As I read the next lesson, I was so overwhelmed by God's gift to me that I couldn't stop the tears. As I'm sitting there fretting about my past and worrying about its effect on my future I read these words: "We can't undo the past; what we can do, by God's grace, is seek to learn from our past mistakes and, to whatever degree possible, make restitution for whatever wrong we have done. After all, all we can do is surrender to God and seek His mercy, grace, and healing." I tell you GOD CARES!! About something as simple as me feeling down, He cares. And He didn't bother to really give me a chance to wallow in my sorrows: instead He reached out and set my eyes on the blessing that was in my lesson. An amazing God.
It's not like I had truly forgotten that I couldn't undo the past, but I needed that simple reminder that what's done is done. After reading this I was also reminded that when God forgives us, He tosses our sins in the sea of forgetfulness. So I'm here on earth worrying about sins and bad decisions that God has already forgotten. Out of all the complex and complicated things that our brains can do, why can't it remember that God forgives and forgets?? Why do we allow the devil to degrade us by showing us our past mistakes?? Why can't we hold fast to God's promises of forgiveness and restoration?? It's my prayer that you and I won't continue to let our past mistakes dictate our present feelings. We must instead remember the sea of forgetfulness.
