Sunday, July 22, 2007

Turning your mess into a message

“And we know that all things worked together for good for those who loved Him and are called according to His purposes.” Romans 8:28

Have you ever lost something and then try spending all your energy and resources to try to make up for what you have lost, and hopefully, gain something even better? We always spend so much of our time mourning over what we have lost in the past that we did not even realize that we are losing our future in deep ashes.

It is OK to mourn and grief over what has happened, but get over the mourning period as soon as possible and make up your minds that that is the last time you are mourning over that! We cannot afford to waste another half of our day mourning and regretting because we woke up late and wasted the first half of a day.

You may have made a mistake and we all do, and the devil always loves to see us regretting over our mistakes instead of getting on with life. Whenever we make a mistake, we don’t have to feel guilty and condemned or even give up, because it is not the end yet. When you have made a mistake, ask for forgiveness from God and the person(s) involved, and if you can make restitution, then by all means do it, receive the forgiveness, and move on with life. I remember doing something stupid and felt so ashamed of myself after that, and for two whole days I wept till I had no more tears left, and at the end of it I decided to give up on everything, even God. But God was so faithful, He preserved my life and put me back on track, but even though people have accepted me unlike what I had expected, I spent months until recently, hitting myself hard and regretting over what I have done.

Now look at two perfect examples of these two disciples of Jesus—Peter and Judas Iscariot. Both have committed an equally grievous sin in God’s eyes. One had denied that he ever knew Jesus, and the other, out of greed, had agreed to betray Jesus for a sack of silver coins. But look at how they both responded. Peter, upon being consumed with guilt at the rooster’s crow, wept bitterly, while Judas, on the other hand, hung himself. Peter grieved for a while and then decided to leave the past behind and continued to become a powerful minister of the gospel, while Judas allowed his guilt to consume him so much that he decided that that is the end of himself.

I believe that if Judas were to give himself a chance, or rather, to allow Jesus to give him another chance, Jesus would so willingly forgive and restore him.

Well, maybe you have been hurt, bruised and battered in your past. Things have been so bad you have no idea how the verse above can fit. You have no idea how your life can bring out anything good.

You cannot, but God can. God can turn your mess into a message. Only when you have gone through all the experiences that you have gone through, can God use you to minister His love to the hurting world. And only when you’ve been hurt will you know exactly what it is like to hurt. You can understand and not minimize another person’s pain. Maybe, it is even a blessing in disguise. Maybe God wanted to protect you from further damages. You might never know.

You may not understand what a relief it was when people began to speak prophetically over my life that all that I have gone through will not be wasted; all the experiences will be redeemed. After having gone through so much, I was determined not to waste a single pain. I wanted to get back more than I have lost. God has promised to not only restore what the locusts have eaten, but restore back seven times more. And I know that the only way is to allow my experiences to help others.

You can have your mess turned to a message, but only if you will surrender the whole thing to God. This verse says that God can work ALL THINGS for good. Yes, some of the mistakes may have been avoidable, but no matter what it is, God can still turn the situation around for our good. However, the choice is ours—to surrender everything to God or believe in the lies of the Devil. Do not just give up on everything when the devil told you that it is over.

Looking at my life, I’m beginning to see God turning my mess to a message. I can never understand what others go through unless I’ve been there myself.

Satan loves to tell us that we’ve messed up and things will never be the same again, that we cannot get back on track and so we had better give up. He wants us to be so consumed with guilt and pain and bitterness that we cannot get out from the heap of ashes.

But God says otherwise. No matter what you have done, no matter what has happened in your past, you still have a future. God can restore your life and put the pieces back in one piece, but you must allow Him to do so.

Yes, it may seem as if you have lost half of your life, but do not waste the other half mourning over it and not doing anything else. Instead, be determined to let God use the half that was seemingly lost into a brighter future.

One way that God can do to redeem your past is to turn your mess into a message. And you will be surprised at how that message is going to minister to people facing that same problem.

You can look back at your life one day and thank God for redeeming your past, or you can look back in regret that you have given up because the devil tells you to.

The choice is yours. You have to decide.

God loves you and to him, your future is so bright that you’ll need sunglasses to look at it. In God’s eyes nothing has been wasted, nothing that you have gone through has been in vain. He is willing to turn your mess to a life-changing message, but are you willing to let Him have it? Let go and LET GOD!

2 comments:

bklyn said...

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kachichim said...

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