Have you ever had one of those months you are glad when it’s over? I don’t know what it is about the end of a calendar event, be it a week, a month, or a year, but there is something about that physical end of a time period that gives us a new hope.
A new week, a new month, or the start of a new year is a great time to draw that imaginary line and start over. “Forgetting what is behind, I press on to the goal.” (Phillippians 3: 13-14) For myself and my family, this has been a month full of victories, losses, beginnings, and endings. A month of laughing and crying. A month of long days and hard work. It has been a good and challenging month. Some things went well and some did not go well at all. Probably a typical month for most families, but this last month some of the highs and lows were a little higher and lower than normal, and the amount of time at my day job has been higher than normal. But, I press on.
I look forward to the new month. July is a perfect time to draw that line and “press on to the goal.” It is the start of the second half of the year and it is the month we think about freedom. Every day is a great day to start over, though. I don’t have to wait. Whatever happened yesterday, I cannot change. Whatever happened an hour ago, I cannot change. Every day, every minute of every day, I choose to forget the past and press on to the goal. I make mistakes every day. Some of them throw me off my path and I fret about them for a while, always thinking about them. Sometimes it is because the consequences of those mistakes are a constant reminder of what I did or should have done.
That is the nice thing about life. We all make mistakes. We all have things we wish we would have done but didn’t. We all have days, months, or even years of our lives we wish we could change. And we all have consequences of our past decisions that we have to deal with. Well, what is the nice thing about that? The nice thing is that I am where I am in life because of the decisions I have made. Yes, there are always external factors, but I choose how I react to those external factors. Since my decisions have gotten me where I am, I can change my course by changing my decisions. I don’t have to wait until next month, next week, or even tomorrow. I can choose right now to make different decisions and “press on to the goal to win the prize.”
I am looking forward to next month. I am looking forward to today. Life does not start when the calendar changes. Life starts now.
“But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”
Joshua 24:15
