A Fork In The Road

I am willing to bet that every one of us, even those that are young, wish you could change something in the past one way or the other.

You got to that fork in the road, and you made the wrong turn.

You got in a heated exchange and said the wrong thing.

You put yourself in a compromised position and it ended up biting you.

You took the wrong job.

You deserted your true friends for fake friends.

You didn’t do this / you didn’t do that.

You chose drugs instead of your family.

You made an emotional financial decision that you regret. I bought the car and it turned out to be a banana.

You reacted instead of praying.

My point is, “In this life you have made mistakes” Guess what we all have.

Here is the problem. Many people are still living your mistake. Your past is still your future.

God’s people were never meant to carry the burdens of a mistake. One of the saddest things I have ever seen is going to a pet store and seeing an animal in a cage so small it can’t turn around.

I remember when I was little, I saw elephants with chains around their feet, inside a giant steel cage, and they couldn’t move.

I was a kid, a child, and that scared my mind. But it still reminds me of the way God’s people still act.

God never meant for you to carry that heavy load but you have to decide to lightened your load.

Listen to what God hath said:

17 This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of[d] the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind,18 having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart; 19 who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.

20 But you have not so learned Christ, 21 if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus: 22 that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, 23 and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, 24 and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness. EPH 4:17-24

You know what that says to me:

You’re a new creation. Why are living in the past? Why do you continue to live in your decision.

Listen we have made choices that has really put a hurting on us. We have made bad choices in our lifetime.

The thing about that is how do you fix the decisions you have made?

You want to just click your heels and back up. There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home. At the end of the Wizard of Oz, she clicked her heels and went back to the beginning.

I want you to get something out of this. We all have made bad decisions, you can choose to live in it or deal with it. I have been guilty of saying; you dug your whole now live in it. But even when we make a mistake, do you think that God wants us to be miserable. You tell me. How many of you have ever had a child make a wrong choice? Now depending on how bad that choice was, you may want to let that child deal with the consequences but no parent wants there child to suffer because of a bad choice. Listen you have a Father that feels the same way.

There have been so many times God has blessed me despite myself.

1) So you have made a bad choice- what now. Lord I messed up. Yes I know. CONFESS – if you would cry out to the Father as much as we are mopping around crying to our friends, our family, anybody who will listen, then we would find forgiveness, peace, and hope.

Lord, I wish I had listened about taking that Job.

Lord, I messed up when I accused my friend of something he didn’t do.

Lord, I shouldn’t have gotten that credit card.

Lord, I shouldn’t have bought that vehicle.

Lord, help me , help me , help me.

I will love You, O LORD, my strength.

2 The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer;

My God, my strength, in whom I will trust;

My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.

3 I will call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised;

So shall I be saved from my enemies. Pslam 18:1