So our summerseries continues….. I hope that you have been following along. Maybe it’s been
the three audio podcasts or, given that I have been away from the pulpit a few
weeks due to our Devotions to St Anne celebration and this weekend the
Steubenville Conference with our teens, through this Blog. Either way, make
sure to follow along – because Making Sunday Matter is not a slogan, it’s a
life commitment we accepted at Baptism and Confirmation – in essence it is what
Discipleship in Christ is all about – cause without honouring Sunday by being
in God’s House – well – we are saying the Lord’s Day is just like any other day
– and well that is just not true!
So I am not sure
about you but sometimes I have regrets. Things I wish I could do over again,
handle differently, say in a new way, or do over. I know very little about
golf, and if you have ever seen me play you would agree, but the few games I
have played – well – I got the nickname “Mulligan” – because I always wanted to
“do it over.”
As we “Pack OurBags” we find ourselves at times wishing we had “put something in” or not over
packed and could “take something out” during this journey of life toward our
final destination. Our second reading for this Lord's Day is taken from the end of the eighth chapter of Paul’s magnificent
letter to the Romans. In this great book of the Bible, we learn that in Christ,
God has disclosed His providential plan whereby He intends to reconcile all
things to Himself. I don’t know about you, but those words always give me
comfort and peace.
Do you feel weighed down today in condemnation
and shame from past mistakes? It’s time to make an exchange. Because of what
Christ has done, you can walk in God’s mercy every day. Instead of living in
regret, you can live in peace. You don’t have to sit on the sidelines of life
and pay penance for your past mistakes. God has a gift of righteousness to
cover you. Nothing you’ve done in the past is too much for the mercy of God.
But Mercy is something we must be willing to “pack” and it is the only things
we should “carry around.”
As
long as you’re living in regret, focused on the negative things of the past,
it’s going to keep you from all that the Lord has ahead for you. You’ve got
to let go of what didn’t work out. Let go of the hurts and pain. Let go of your
disappointments and failures.
You can’t do anything about the past, but you can
do something about right now. Whether it happened 20 years ago or 20 minutes
ago, let it go and move forward. If you keep bringing negative baggage from
yesterday into today, it will slow done your progress toward your future. It is
like packing too much and find that the weight of the baggage is slowing down
your arrival for where you need to be. You may have had an unfair past, but you
don’t have to have an unfair future. You may have gotten off to a rough start
in life, but it’s not how you start that matters. It’s how you finish.
To help
you do this, let me give you three strategies for the first ten minutes of your
day.
1. Choose
to serve the Lord with all your heart.
Every
morning we have the opportunity to choose who we are going to serve; who we are
going to live to please that day. Every morning we can consecrate ourselves to
the Lord. You might pray something like this: Lord, You are my highest desire.
I want to serve You and please You in every aspect of my life today. This is
the day You have made. I choose to rejoice and be glad in it! Give Him your all, seek to discern His will and way daily. Pray for faithfulness and wisdom when moments of choice and decision come, and trust that His Spirit will show the way!
2. Choose
to be happy and full of joy.
Joy and
gladness don’t just happen to us — we choose them! We may not feel happy or
joyful, but when we take on happiness, live in joyful ways, our feelings will
begin to respond to our choices. So recount God’s faithfulness to you. Thank
Him for all He has done, and remember the ways that He has delivered you in the
past. Don’t focus on what you haven’t got — be grateful for what you have. Put
a song in your heart, and sing it all day long. Jesus said, “In the world you
will have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)
3. Choose
to look to God to provide for your needs.
God says
we are to ask Him for our daily bread. He never runs out of what we need! When
the children of Israel gathered manna, there was always enough. They were never
lacking, and didn’t have to work for it. But they did have to look to Him to
provide it, and receive it from His hand. Trust God to meet your needs at the
beginning of every day.
We
live without regret not because everything is perfect, and not because there
are not things to discourage us, but we live without regret because God will
provide. In Christ Jesus, all things become new and today's disappointments become tomorrow's opportunities. Today's failures transform themselves in tomorrow's lessons. Today's set back and hurdles, appear tomorrow as new roads and pathways to an even better way that He has planned for us.
That is the great treasure spoken of in our Gospel, to live in His peace! What great joy there is when we finally find a precious thing that we have long been seeking. This treasure might be finding our vocation, landing the perfect job, the birth of a child, or making peace with the past. Our desire for this long-sought pearl helps us to better understand the heart of God. Made in His image and likeness, but given complete free will, we are His treasure. He longs for the return of our love just as the merchant waited to find the pearl of great price. We are that unique and precious creation that Jesus is willing to sacrifice everything for. He waits and looks for us, and welcomes us with great joy and love.
Sometimes God's love is found that way.
There's the saying, "Life is what happens to you while you're busy
making other plans." Sometimes in the course of our everyday lives,
something happens that vividly and surprisingly summons us to union with God.
We realize, in a flash, what it's all about. We weren't particularly looking
for it, but it found us.
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That's what Jesus is getting at today. As you pack for the walk through the fields of life, be open to the inrushing of grace, when you least expect it. And when it comes, give up anything that holds it back. So as we keep packing - well, pack the treasure which is His peace. So go forth and live it now - "God's got it" - live in His peace, not your regrets!