It’s Time for a Fresh Start // The Art of Living, Part 1

My Friend, if your life is drifting the buck stops with you and it’s time for you to do something about it; the alternative … well, the alternative is getting to the end of your days here on this earth and looking back at a life-long missed opportunity.

 

WEIGHING UP THE PAST

There are so many people walking around on planet earth today whose failures and disappointments of the past are ruining their present and robbing them of their future. Can I ask you a question? Are you one of those people?

I remember a time in my life when my past was weighing me down, a time when in fact my past became such a burden, such a huge load, that it was completely unbearable. It was so bad that I came very close to taking my own life. I remember standing on the 8th floor balcony of that hotel seriously considering jumping over the edge. I’ll share with you a little bit later what it was that pulled me back from the brink.

We’re kicking off the year with a series of messages which I have called, ‘The Art of Living’ because if we’re going to realise the hopes and the dreams that we have for this New Year we need to spend some time thinking about our lives. Most of us don’t do that. We kind of know the hurts, the things that aren’t working so well. A lot of people brood about the negatives in their lives, but mostly we just think about the symptoms. So today and over the coming weeks we’re going to go a bit deeper than just the symptoms. We’re going to be chatting about exactly how we live our lives and the best place to start is with our past.

We each have a past, and as I’ve said there are just so many people for whom their past is ruining their present and robbing them of their future. Now in a very real sense, unless we let go of the past we simply can’t enjoy our lives today. We simply can’t look forward to our future without that sense of hope and anticipation. Let me give you an example.

I know a man who has had a very difficult life. He was abused when he was young and for many years people told him that he just wasn’t good enough. Instead of encouraging him the people around him, his work colleagues, even his family, kept telling him what was wrong with him. They focussed on his failures and his faults rather than on the good things about him. Now come on, we’re all something of a mixed bag aren’t we? We each have certain strengths and certain weaknesses and it’s really sad when people just focus on our weaknesses. And that’s exactly what happened to this man.

So today he looks at his world through that set of eyes, through a mindset that’s deeply affected by his past. He can’t really enjoy who he is and what he has, and he has rather a lot, when he looks forward to his future he doesn’t have a sense of anticipation, even for tomorrow and the next day let alone for rest of this year and the rest of his life. We can talk about all sorts of wonderful things that this year might hold, but unless we first let go of the hurts and the disappointments of the past then none of that means anything.

You’ve probably heard that old saying, “Don’t cry over spilt milk”. Now there’s a reason for this for once the milk is spilt you can’t un-spill it. You can clean up the mess, you can apologies to someone if it hurt them or inconvenienced them, you can even learn the lesson that might stop you from doing it again but you can’t undo it. None of us can change the past and for some people today it’s time to let go of your past.

When I was standing on that balcony on the day almost 20 years ago now, it was the past that was pulling me over the edge. Even though I had many successes along the way I’d made some mistakes, some big mistakes and I just didn’t know if I could live with the consequences of those mistakes. It seemed like the present wasn’t worth living; it seemed like the future was bleak and hopeless and when we lose hope, hey what’s the point of living.

I know there are some people who are thinking that way today and what makes it even harder is that everybody else is out there focused on starting off the new year and looking forward to what the year has to hold. The thing that pulled me back from the edge on that cool, sunny morning was something that I’d read the night before. For some reason someone had put a Bible in the top draw of the bedside table in my hotel room. I’d taken it out and I read something in it that night. It said this:

Don’t be afraid for I am with you; don’t be afraid for I am your God. I’ll strengthen you, I’ll help you and I will uphold you with my victorious right hand. (Isaiah 41:10)

That’s what gave me hope; the hope of a present where I wasn’t alone; the hope of a future that just might be worth living. None of us can change the past but on that day on that hotel balcony began for me the process of letting