Starting Over

Only a fool would leave the popularity and affirmation of the masses to venture into the quiet and unknown. Only a fool would walk away from the comforts of a modern city to walk an abandoned road. Only a fool would turn his back on speaking to the masses to speak to the one. That defies logic…common sense…and everything the world teaches as success.

We use a lot of different ways to measure our lives. I suppose the most basic is our birthday. Each year marks not only a passage through time, but also (in theory at least) a season of growth and added maturity. That’s why those pesky zero years can be so intimidating. I am staring at the BIG 3-0 this year, so I know all about that one.

We measure our lives through school, jobs, promotions, births, deaths, moves, and other major changes. Each one becomes a mile stone along the path as we move through life.

I want to suggest a measurement that I think most of us use, but just don’t think about very often. Its part of many of the other markers yet stands alone. Sometimes it’s the result of good, even great, things that happen in our lives. Other times it’s the exact opposite as it stems from death or failure or catastrophe. Regardless of its roots, this measurement marks the way, and isn’t effected at all by what gives it birth.

I speak of starting over.  Life is constantly giving us opportunities to begin again, in ways both great and small, thus the tradition of New Years Resolutions. When you think about your progression through life from the vantage point of starting over, you can see an almost endless string of opportunities to begin again.

There’s one absolutely vital fact you must remember about all these chances. they are morally and spiritually neutral. They are forks in the road, nothing more. You can choose to become worse as easily as chose to become better. In fact, choosing to become worse is almost always easier in the short term.

Why do you think the world is filled with so many bitter people? It’s the cheap and easy way to respond to death and betrayal. Easy that is until it ruins your life, soul and all your remaining relationships. And even in that moment, when you realize what a fool you’ve been and how you’ve poisoned both yourself and everyone around you; God offers you yet another chance to begin again.

The real challenge isn’t to start over, but to start over in a way that makes you more like Jesus then you were before. When you do that, in even the smallest measure, then you know you’ve done the right thing, and are in fact a true success.