Ah yes! We like to talk about the good old days when life was tougher than Mom’s free-range chicken. We embellish our stories: like that commercial that boasts of walking nine miles to school, uphill both ways, through a blizzard, wearing nothing but your dad’s cast-off pajamas!
Life without electricity, neighbours, and indoor facilities sounds like fun now. Doesn‘t it? Only now we call it camping.
I don’t know about you, but when I told folks about my good old days, I glossed over the truth because I couldn’t face the hard facts from my past. The truth is that our good old days, the ones before we knew Jesus as our personal Saviour, were never really great.
I didn’t know that Jesus knew all about my fears and my failures yet loved me unconditionally, no matter what mistakes I’d made in my good old past days.
In fact, He loved me so much that He died on the cross just for me and rose from the dead just for me. He sent his Holy Spirit just for me.
All I had to do was turn from my old life, ask Him to forgive me, and ask Him to come into my life.
My past included abuse, bulimia, cancer, nervous breakdowns, and depression, lots of ostuff that I didn’t want to remember. I used to see my life as junk, something to forget. I saw no sign of goodness in me. I thought I was a lost cause, but I was wrong.
The Bible says that when we try to live a life without Jesus Christ, we are people with no help or strength. We are a mere shadow of what we can be. (Psalm 88:4)
When someone finally explained Jesus to me, I learned that all I had to do was turn from my old life, ask Him to forgive me, and come into my life.
And I learned by experience that the very same God who cared enough to die on the cross for my sin cared enough to take care of both my good old days and my glorious future with him.
“The Lord God is my strength, my personal bravery, and my invincible army. He makes my feet like the feet of the deer. He enables me to walk, not to stand still in terror—but to walk and make spiritual progress upon my high places of trouble and suffering and responsibility” (Habakkuk 3:19 AMP).
I don’t know what is happening in your life. But I know this: Jesus is enough for whatever it is.
As this year draws to a close, let’s look forward with all we have in us. After all, history is written by the survivors. What will your story about the future good old days look like?
“Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13-14 NIV).
Brenda J. Wood is a motivational speaker and author.
http://everydaychristian.com
http://heartfeltdevotionals.com
www.facebook.com/brendawoodspeaker
Yours and mine sound similar. These days I say, “The good old days? Thank goodness they’re over, and thanks to God that I survived them!”
I’ll take my present with Jesus and his blessings of family, healing, and hope any day!