Begin With "Good-Bye"

The good Lord surely knew what He was doing when He made us! He gave us a front and a back, and our heads were screwed on so that we look towards where we are going, and not where we’ve been. I can look back, and there are times when I need to do so, but I was designed to look ahead.

It is sad when some people live in the past. They glory over past victories, until they become a stumbling-block, preventing them from living in the present. And there are others who get hung up on their failures, and on personal misfortunes, and with deep sorrow, they bury themselves in self-pity.

The Scriptures tell us that Lot’s wife turned into a pillar of salt because she couldn’t leave the past. She kept turning around, grieving over what she was leaving. She was not ready to face the future. And because of this, she had no future!

There are circumstances in life when we need to begin with “good-bye”. Beginning a New Year is one of them. Moving to a new community is another. Taking a new job is such an experience. There must be a movement from grief to new beginnings. Sure, last year had its good moments. Yes, your own community means a lot to you, and the old job wasn’t all that bad. But life goes on!

The apostle Paul was wise enough to say that “he died daily”. As parents, we died a little death, when we released our first child to go to school. We died a little death when our daughter walked down the aisle to her future husband. We die little deaths when we go for surgery. On each of these times, we trusted ourselves and our loved ones to Life.

Perhaps God has so ordained that we die these little deaths so that we can make a final transition some day. Unless we can trust, and really say, “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded, that He is willing to keep that which I’ve committed unto Him, against that day.” (II Timothy 1:12) then we are not ready for that final act of BEGINNING.

Endings and beginnings are built into all of life, to keep us conscious of this truth. Each morning, we get up…each evening we go to bed. There is healing in saying the smaller good-byes, in dealing with the smaller death, so that we may be able to deal with the larger separations that come to us.

The past is past. We must learn to say “good-bye” to our sins, to our failures. Lay your sorrows and your hang-ups, your fears and your tensions at the feet of the Savior. For He is faithful and just to forgive your sins, and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness, if you come to Him. (I John 1:9) To deny that He does this is to blaspheme God and His promises.

Let today be the first day of new beginnings, and say “Good-bye” to yesterday with all its failures.

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