If I Had It To Do Over Again...
posted September 21, 2006 - 8:08amHow many times have you said, or heard someone else say, "If I had it to do over again...?" A remark like this often bears only minor significance and receives the response, "I hear ya." Behind these words, however, lie genuine regrets.
A growing number of people desperately wish that they really could do it all over again. After pursuing a bad decision we wish that we could turn back the hands of the clock, choose differently, and get on with life. However, we are living in a society where there is too much too soon, and that is a particularly dangerous combination. The precocious child, barely out of infancy, is thrust into a world of adult dialog by parents who confuse potential for maturity. Following those early years, many more children face the challenge beyond their years of coping with frightening family insecurities. As if this were not enough to give them the defensive demeanor of a victim, they are assailed by a society and media that imposes its sullied vocabulary and sordid mental fixations on them. From this point on, life is a battle for survival against such foes as loneliness, insecurity, and depression, a defensive quest for fun and affection. Drugs, alcohol, and sex often enter the picture at this point...and an ugly accumulation of regrets is in the making. Out of this sad scenario comes marriage anad family (or just family), and the whole negative process is set to compound for the next generation.
"If I had it to do over again" is very often the lament of the desperate. Sadly, if they did have it to do all over again, likely, the same thing would happen. Like New Year's resolutions, the most earnest resolve soon dissolves, and the same old, same old prevails.
All is not hopeless, however, far from it in fact. A clean slate is close at hand, as close as these words prayed in earnest: "Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit to sustain me." Psalm 51:10-12.
It matters not if you are smothered in sin, buffeted about by its consequences, and helpless to change any of life's circumstances, much less your surroundings, no matter how hard you try.
In His Word, the Bible, our Savior comes to us where we are. He lifts us up and binds us to Himself so that we may live above our circumstances.
In God's Law found in the Bible we come face to face with our sin. In the Bible, we also come face to face with Jesus Christ our Savior from sin and its consequences. Our denial and guilt, Satan's sledgehammers, dissolve at the prospects of new life in Christ. Then, via the route of contrition (genuine sorrow wor sin) and repentance, we are forgiven in Christ and given a clean slate...a new start for a new life.
Yes, we do have it to do all over again...but better this time, in Christ eternal, our Savior and friend.
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Comments
The Soul goes to God
Celanith
Hello everyone, stop and set awhile.
Wow, two Jesus posts in a row.
Antonia Dwells
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