“But you, Timothy, man of God: Run for your life from all this. Pursue a righteous life—a life of wonder, faith, love, steadiness, courtesy. Run hard and fast in the faith. Seize the eternal life, the life you were called to, the life you so fervently embraced in the presence of so many witnesses.” I Timothy 6:11-12 (The Message)
The other day our daughter and I had the privilege to spend some time together watching a movie, just the two of us. It was an older movie but one I had wanted to see for quite a while. It was based on a true story about a husband and wife. They were in an accident and the wife suffered a traumatic brain injury, resulting in amnesia from the time period directly before and since meeting her husband. When she woke up, she had no recollection of their life together or other major life experiences that helped shape her identity. There were so many gems packed into that movie and today I want to talk about one of them.
The husband narrated throughout the movie and at one point in the beginning, he stated that life breaks down to each individual being the sum total of our experiences. What an accurate description. Depending upon what circumstances one faces in life, they cannot help but shape and mold us into the people that we become.
I want to take that statement one step further though – God is in the business of taking all of our circumstances and bringing good out of them if we surrender and let Him lead. Think about the men and women from the Bible: David was described as a man after God’s own heart but we don’t have to read very far into his life before we see how he made many mistakes. God was able to take those mistakes, though, when David surrendered his will, confessed his sin and turned back to God and bring about good. Moses, who had a hot temper, was raised in the palace of Pharaoh as an adopted son; yet impulsively killed an Egyptian who was beating an Israelite and then fled into the desert to hide before God used his life to rescue the whole nation of Israel and lead them through the desert to the Promised Land. Paul, formerly known as Saul, spent the first half of his life killing Christians; yet, when God showed up on the road to Damascus, Paul radically changed and became the God’s boldest witness.
As I love to say often, what God does in the lives of others, He’s willing and wants to do in our lives as well. What areas of your life, what sum total of … do you have that you would like God to bring good out of? We all have areas of our lives that need to be restored or redeemed. The question is … are you willing to surrender to God so He can create something beautiful? I want to encourage you today. God loves to redeem, restore, bring about beauty from our mistakes. And … when we allow Him to do what only He does best, He will use the sum total of our lives for His purpose.
Come back next time for the next truth God reminded me of through a movie based on a true story.
© Cheri Swalwell 2018