GOD WANTS US TO FORGIVE OURSELVES, TOO!!!
That’s the message from Him this morning by my prayer altar. This God wink started yesterday when I felt this strong nudge from Him to attend the Breakfast and Bible group. Your girl was hungover from drinking one glass of wine, and I started arguing with that feeling, but I felt God saying that, despite that, I should still attend. So, I’m in the group, confessing that I was a little bit out of it, and the group’s moderator, Indira, out of the blue, chimes in, telling me I needed to forgive myself. I was blown away because it’s truly something I’ve been struggling with and beating myself about lately. I thanked her for that perfectly timed message.
Fast forward to this morning, God continued the discussion about forgiving myself when asking Him what page of our family’s website I should go to to hear from Him, can you believe out of 149 webpages, He took me back to a post from Ceri that I shared from three years ago where he shared this same issue with the Breakfast and Bible group about forgiving himself? No way this all lined up as a regular coincidence. GOD HIMSELF WANTS US TO FORGIVE OURSELVES!!!! Enough from me, though, here’s that post from Ceri:
So I want to read from the book of Isaiah 43:18-19, and it says,
“Forget the former things;
do not dwell on the past.
See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”
These verses are very impactful because God reminds us of a few things. Like forget the former things… basically forget about your past. He tells us not to dwell on it. Don’t keep reminding yourself of your past. Like your past is your past, and you can’t change it, but the one thing you can change in life is your future. And the way you change your future is through the steps you take today. The decisions you make today can determine your tomorrow…
Everyone deserves a second chance, but the reality is that we all have a past. There’s not one person sitting on the stage, there’s not one person walking this planet who has done everything in their life that’s right in God’s eyesight. None of us. Every single one of us falls short of the glory of God. So, who are we to go there and comment on someone for their past or for things they’ve done? Who are we to decide how their future is or what they will be in life? That decision doesn’t rest with us and doesn’t sit well with me when people try to do it.
Because imagine if I had sat back and allowed people to tell me who I was going to be. Imagine if I had sat back and accepted that I couldn’t forgive myself for the things that I did. It took me a long time – it took me meeting all of y’all in here and telling me, boy, get over it – forgive yourself. Move on. God has renewed you and restored you. When I got baptized last year, the words the Pastor told me always stuck and will stick with me for the rest of my life: “WHEN YOU GO UNDERNEATH THIS WATER AND COME BACK UP, YOU’RE A NEW PERSON. And I’ve been living like that. Everyone deserves that chance. Everyone deserves that opportunity because God gave it to me.”
God, help us all forgive ourselves and others for the past, and keep moving forward with You as our Life Partner and Guide, forgetting the former things and being excited about the NEW lives You have planned for us. Amen!