10/21/18
Great Is Thy Faithfulness
Lamentations 4:1-22
In the Oscar award winning film, Napoleon Dynamite, Uncle Rico insisted that in his glory days, if coach had put him in at QB back in high school, they would have won states.
What are some of your realistic favorite memories from your days growing up? What makes them your favorites?
Is there any aspect of those memories that for good reason, you could reanimate? In other words, are there realistic steps you could take to replicate to some extent the good values that you so favorably remember?
For example, if you remember and value the time you spent with your dad fishing, because now you realize he carved out time just for you and taught you something and you had genuine fun together. Can you set aside time for each of your children to something similar? Maybe it was time spent in the kitchen or the garage or at the park or on vacation. Not that you’re reliving in exact detail your glory days, but that you’re seeking to give your children their own glory days to remember.
The flip side of this coin could be the memories you do not have, that you wish you did have. The things you never got to do with your parents for whatever reason. Rather than living with regret and being bitter about what never did take place, could you now create some memorable events for your own children? Keeping in mind, this is for them, not you. Change your regrets into what’s best.
The third side of this coin could be the behavior of your parents that you will NEVER replicate because you’ve come to learn it was sinful and hurtful to you. How can you turn that into a positive, building new redemptive qualities from it, not necessarily just for your own children, but for anyone in your life who could benefit? Can you forgive your parents and freely build new experiences for your children to cherish and hold onto?
Don’t be a prisoner of the past. And you do not have to rely on the luck of the flip of a 3 sided coin. You can set a course that will create your own good memories while perhaps redeeming some events of the past. Live now for Jesus in the now, seek His kingdom now, and all these things will be added to you…
