A few years ago Katie, the boys , and I were visiting my family on a typical holiday weekend and our boys were driving us crazy. Parents, have you also noticed that your normally great kids just get annoying when they get around other people sometimes? I don’t know if it’s the need to show-off, the changed environment, or the hope of a present from Grandma and Grandpa, but it drives us crazy. This particular time, Katie had gotten to her wits end - as had I - and she said, “Okay, we’re starting over right now!” But unfortunately, she didn’t have God’s power to speak things into existence and her declaration had little effect. But she didn’t give up. Katie would go on to start over about fifty times that day, hoping one of them would work. My dad still teases her about starting over… “now”.
There are times that we do need to just start over. Some of those times are because we need to put the past behind us and begin anew with open hearts and fresh eyes. We do this when we obey Jesus’ command to forgive each other and offer grace.
But sometimes we start fresh for positive reasons instead of negative ones. A few weeks ago we completed our pledge drive to finance the new parking lot and we celebrated and dedicated our lot by having worship outside on it. It was an amazing day! I’ve written all about that experience here because it really was phenomenal. One thing that struck me that Sunday morning as we committed to use our parking lot for the furtherance of God’s Kingdom was that it is a new beginning for us. Of course, the fact that we have new concrete isn’t remarkable, but on October 4th as we worshiped outside, we have a day to remember God’s faithfulness. Though parking our cars is a small part of what needs to happen on this land God has provided for our ministry, He still gave us what we needed to repair a dire need. God proved His faithfulness. If He will be faithful in the parking lots, why should we ever worry that He will be faithful in other ways?
Two prayer warriors of our church shared with me that they have felt that the parking lot may be step one to big things God is doing in us and through us here. And I believe them. God’s desire is to radically change this world through His church, and we have the chance to be a big part of that here in Mount Pleasant and our surrounding area.
So what if we start… now? What if we look back on God’s faithfulness in 2014 and say “that was the beginning”? It doesn’t matter what has happened before, good or bad. We are going to go forward with the knowledge and experience that God is going to be faithful to us so we will be faithful to Him.
This gets me so excited for what is coming. I want to be a part of something that matters, don’t you? I want to see that my life has mattered, and that I haven’t just wandered lazily through the life God has given.
So let’s start over. Let’s start now, knowing that God has plans for us and He’s going to lead us, provide what we need, and come through faithfully. This is going to be fun… starting… NOW!
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