Never Going Back Again

What have been some of the toughest realities of your life that you have had to deal with? How has God given you what you needed to battle through?
In my own dozen-year war dealing with issues that have included but not limited to anxiety, depression, and OCD; I can honestly tell you that the Lord hasn’t fixed it like I hoped He would.
I thought healing would come faster and restoration be finished by now. It has also forced me to face the following questions, “Why is our real enemy not the brokenness we deal with but the pride that causes us to hide who we really are? How honest are you with God in your prayers? How authentic have you been willing to be with yourself and are you ready to risk vulnerability with the family and friends that you surround you?”
I think that for too long my goal has been to return to the Rudy I was before all the craziness began. I have been expecting the Lord to take me back to how I used to be so I can pick up where I left off.
Herein lays my biggest obstacle. Why would God allow all the up-and-down experiences of the last 12 years if they were not going to play a significant role in who the Lord is making me become?
Rather than label these as the lost period of my journey, what if God saw them more as the launch into the redeemed Rudy?
How can we be thankful in all situations even when we are not thankful for all situations?
I can answer that dilemma by sharing that as low as we may go, God goes even deeper with us than that. Just because it appears that the Lord is silent, doesn’t mean He is absent.
I may have done my share of complaining but Jesus is still my constant companion. Life can be unbelievably difficult but the Lord is unconditionally present.
I notice Him more when I need Him most. In my subtraction, God is my necessary addition. Would I have been so dependent upon Heaven’s grace if earth’s agenda had been more user friendly? I don’t think so.
Paul challenged us to forget what has already happened behind us so we can be pressing on to the adventure still on our horizon.
God forgives and forgets our sin. Why are we stubbornly hanging onto what the Lord has boldly declared for us to let it go? I don’t want to go backwards. I can’t redo what has been recorded in the books.
I can apply the lessons learned as my bridges were burned because my future is not in my past. Where is God taking the more mature me? My body may bear the battle scars but God has promised that freedom will still get a chance to ring. The best is still yet to come and the last I checked, it is not a rerun of what was but exciting previews of what is still yet to be.
The house in my heart may have been well lived in but the value of the property has definitely increased in value.
The taxes may have been demanding but the dawn of a new day is here. Jesus paid it all and all to Him I owe.
Sin has left a crimson stain but God has taken the burnt-out soil and made it fertile and holy ground.
There is nothing like growing bouquets of roses in the desert. There is nothing like a delicious dessert of ice cream to soothe a hard and difficult day.
Where are you today on the highway of holiness? What are you really hoping for?
Are you longing for the good old days? Are you dreaming about the possibilities of tomorrow?
I can’t hide the battle fatigue anymore. I can’t pretend that I can start living again when all the clouds decide to disappear. God has taught me how to dance in the rain and march in my own parade in spite of the pain.
The enemy can throw some booby traps in the runway but this plane is going to land in Paradise.
Let’s stop putting off until tomorrow what must happen today. Thanks for the memories Lord, but I am never going back again.
Instead of championing what we once were; it is time to celebrate the people we are becoming.
God is making something beautiful and He is doing it in you and me.
ED. NOTE: The author is the senior pastor of The Lighthouse Church, 1248 Route 9 South, Court House.