Hello everyone!
Did you know that “should have” are words the devil loves? For these words can lead to guilt. Everyone has a “should have” in their lives. But if you dwell on the should have’s, you’ll never move forward to the “can do’s”. When you get stuck in the should have’s- you get frozen in the guilties!
What person has not regretted something in their lives? Whether it be an unthinking sharp word, a bad decision, or not obeying when you sensed God tell you to do something. What about NOT saying something you should have? Or missing an opportunity to tell someone the Gospel – when the door was wide open – because of fear of what their reaction would be. What about judging someone unfairly?
We all want to be perfect – but we are all human. Jesus is the only perfect one. If we hang on to the should have’s and guilties, we live a life of regret. We can’t change what we’ve done or what’s been done to us. But we can keep going and try to do our best today. Otherwise it’s like looking in the rear view mirror while trying to go forward. If we keep looking back, we won’t move forward without crashing.
We certainly won’t move in the direction God has for us by remembering our failures. The devil just loves to remind us. He likes to tell us – “can’t do”. What better way to “freeze” us in our past than to take away our confidence for the future. No matter what the past, don’t keep looking back at it. If you do, you can’t move into your future. God has better things in store – even if we can’t see the whole picture at the moment. I think our Heavenly Father must be like a parent coaxing their child to learn to walk, saying, “Keep going, you can do it, you can make it”.
If we are to get rid of past mistakes, we have to press through to get beyond them. The Israelites had to fight the giants to get to the promised land. They had to press through from where they were to get to where they were going. Sometimes it takes a battle in your spirit.
I guess that’s why God didn’t give us eyes in back of our heads! He intended us to look to our future, for He has good plans for us. Let’s let go of past disappointments and move into it! Let’s change should have to – can do!
Blessings, Evelyn
Reminder: I will be speaking 6 P.M. Sunday, April 10, 2011 at 42 Yates Avenue, Newton, NJ. Hope to see you there!
Evelyn-
My prayer for a year now is that I can really, really be this way in my relationship with God. It’s been some journey! Thanks for the encouragement!
-Desirée
Hi Desiree
Thank you for responding. I think this is one of the hardest “lessons” to learn. I’m still working on it!
Blessings,
Evelyn
Thanks Evelyn for the reminder. We need to be reminded of this often because we make so many mistakes that provide the devil with opportunities to discourage us.
Hi Pat,
Amen! The devil just keeps trying to distract us and get us off track, but if we keep our eyes on Jesus and what He did instead of what we did, we will have the victory.
Thank you for responding.
Blessings, Evelyn