I was observing someone who wanted to take pictures to commemorate a special day. She took a multitude of pictures with her cell phone of the same pose and after reviewing them, she took them again. There were lots of retakes! I totally get it as someone who dislikes taking pictures and often comes out looking terrible. A thought struck me as I observed what was going on before me. Isn’t this a reflection of how we are living life? This idea that we can just recreate a moment and make it look just as we want it to, instead of seeing it for what it truly is. As people, we sometimes forget that there are no re-takes or do-overs for the important things in life. We can’t take a moment and live it again until we get it to look just as we want. Oftentimes, what’s done is done and I believe that the ugly moments in our life can’t be deleted or ignored because they are necessary learning tools. These are the moments where we can reflect long and hard on our mistakes and moreover, these moments are part of our story. It’s what we were, how we looked and what we did in those moments. They’re good reminders of what we should change about ourselves. The reality is that our actions have enduring consequence and either you step up and change the course of things, or you don’t.
God is full of grace and understands that we stumble and make mistakes, but God doesn’t want us to stay in the same place repeating the same mistakes over and over again. You can’t keep doing the same thing over and over and expect to get a different outcome. He calls us to recognize the error of our ways, own the mistakes and consequences, and move on. Growing with God is a process, not a stagnant situation. In the important things of life, there are no do-overs.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come; the old has gone, the new is here!-2 Corinthians 5:17
The Woolgatherer 