On the second Friday of each month in 2019 we will be studying one of the most memorized chapters in the Bible: PSALM 23. Join me as we bring fresh application of this beloved psalm to our lives.
As you look back on this journey called life… the school years, marriage, raising a family, having and changing jobs, moving around, buying houses, making various life choices… What do you see?
MISTAKES
or
LESSONS LEARNED
It’s easy to look back with regret and see all the things you wish you could change. We need to remember that when we were living in that space and time we made the choices we did for a reason. We could only do what we could with what we knew at that particular moment.
Ok, maybe it was a bad decision that became a huge mistake.
But we who are followers of Christ must believe what God has promised us:
“…every detail of our lives is continually woven together to fit into God’s perfect plan of bringing good into our lives…”
~ Romans 8:28 (The Passion Translation)
No one is going to manage our memory time. It’s up to us to not waste time looking back in the rearview mirror at yesterday with regret and sadness.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. ~ Psalm 23:6a
Today’s portion of Psalm 23 assures us that goodness and mercy will follow us all the days of our life. That means we can expect to look back and see God’s goodness in every season… to see God’s mercy sparing us of something bad that could have happened that was much worse instead.
When we take this perspective on our past, whether it is in the distant past or just earlier today, we must trust that God is faithful to His Word.
He is going behind us, as we follow His will in our life, He is making sure there is goodness and mercy following us as He weaves every detail of our life together according to His special plan.
When we do this, we can rest much easier without hanging on to regretted mistakes. We can trust that God knows who we were when we made those decisions and He will turn that mistake into a message that we can share with others along the way.