By Jan Kolb
There is a television commercial that shows an elderly woman who has fallen in her garden. She is wearing a medical alert device that signals for help. This ad makes me think of many people who have fallen in life. Some have been able to get back up, but others just cave in to despair, afraid to ever try again.
Has something so painful and overwhelming happened to you that it has affected every area of your life? Every time you kneel to pray, does your mind go back to the fact that someone broke your heart or wounded your spirit?
Have you experienced something so personally devastating that you can’t discuss it with anyone? Do you find it difficult to trust people and don’t know where to turn? You may feel as if everyone is grading you and evaluating your life to see if you are going to make it or not. Many are saying, “I told you so.”
Perhaps you know you should have finished school. You know you should not have gotten pregnant before you were married. Your parents tried to tell you, but you would not listen. You feel it is too late for you and that life has passed you by.
DON’T YOU DARE GIVE UP!
There is hope for you and healing for all your past hurts. The Bible is full of men and women who blew it big time, yet God never gave up on them.
Jacob was one of these men. His very name meant “swindler, cheat and liar.” Why, he even deceived his own father and cheated his twin brother. But when he was running in despair, God gave him a dream. Jacob had an encounter with the living God that changed his life forever.
The Lord gave him a new name. No longer was he Jacob, but his name was changed to Israel (which means “the one who wrestled with God” or “the champion of God”). Yet many times in the Book of Psalms, God is referred to as the Lord of Hosts and the God of Jacob; not the God of Israel, the changed man, but the God of Jacob, the failure!
Is there a little bit of “Jacob” on the inside of you? God wants to be your God. He is not ashamed of you. He will restore to you the years that have been lost. He is the Healer of broken hearts and the Mender of broken lives.
God has a way of taking people who have been forsaken by others and raising them up. In fact, God tends to prefer such individuals because as they are raised up into a place of power, they are not arrogant like those who think they deserve to be promoted.
Broken individuals tend not to be quite so self-righteous. They tend to be a little warmer and more loving, reaching out to embrace others without fear of rejection. They understand that if it had not been for the Lord, they wouldn’t be who they are. They realize that if it had not been for God’s grace and mercy, they would have never survived.
THERE IS HOPE!
There is healing for hurting single mothers, for insecure women and for battered wives. Abused girls and women in crises are exchanging their despair for hope. Hurting women are finding that they are special to the Father and that God has a personal interest in them.
You are “pregnant with a wonderful future!” DO NOT allow circumstances to perform an abortion on your future or rob you of the dreams and hopes you once had.
Today is the first day of the rest of your life. We cannot change the past, but we can do everything about our futures. Your future is bright if you look to God for help.
Roll your cares over on Him, for He cares for you. He is stronger and wiser than you and can set things in order to charter your course.
The Scriptures declare that we are to serve the Lord with our whole being, including our mind. If there was ever a battleground that Satan wants to seize and dominate in your life, it is the arsenals of your own mind.
I believe that even now, God is calling every prodigal son and daughter back home. He is a loving Father, watching the horizons for your appearance. He alone can give you a life-changing, soul-cleansing, mind-renewing experience. When you get home, He will throw you a party, the likes of which you have never seen!
Jeremiah 29:11 says, “I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.”
DON’T YOU DARE GIVE UP!
