Going Swimming

“Arise...go...to the land which I am giving.” Joshua 1:2

My daughter Kristen reminded me recently of a day decades ago when she was a little girl and we were in the kitchen. I had made a home-made apple pie from scratch and was so proud of the way it had turned out as I slid it onto the rack in the oven. Over the next hour, the aroma wafted throughout the house and I couldn’t wait to have a taste. I finally heard the timer go off and as I was pulling the pie out of the oven it slipped out of my hands and fell face down on the open oven door. As Kristen suddenly appeared in the kitchen with huge brown eyes and a dropped jaw, nothing was left but my response. As frustration and anger built, a sense of peace and logic suddenly came over me which I know was the settling of the Holy Spirit. I simply turned to her and said, ‘Go...put on your bathing suit, I’m taking you swimming.’ The pie stayed on that open oven door and we went swimming that day.

Oh, how I wish my responses would have been as calculated in some of my other failures and messes that I have created over the course of my life. But God invites us all to trust Him to clean up our messes and settle our emotions. Thankfully God’s promise to give us new land... fresh beginnings...subsequent chapters...does not depend upon our perfection, but rather His. Just like Psalm 37:23-24 states, ‘The steps of good men are directed by the Lord. He delights in each step they take. If they fall, it isn’t fatal, for the Lord holds them with his hand.’

‘Miss this truth and miss your new beginning. You must believe that God’s grace is greater than your failures. Pitch your tent on the promise. Everyone stumbles. The difference is in the response. Some stumble into the pit of guilt. Others tumble into the arms of God...Rise up and step out. Fresh starts require a determined first step...There ain’t no future in the past. You can’t change yesterday, but you can do something about tomorrow. Put God’s plan in place.’ Begin Again, Max Lucado, p. 25-26.