Consider Your End

I've been thinking about that I've already had a couple of "do-overs" on this journey and I've kinda been beating myself up.  I KNOW I need this time.  I KNOW I need healing.  And though I have lots of topics in mind that I want to write about, I've taken a few days to try to get my mind right.  I've just needed to try to recalibrate, if you will, and just be still for a bit.  I've taken this time to pray and seek God and His will for my life and my ministry.  I've been somewhat sad because I haven't felt like I've been hearing from Him lately.  I'm scared that I've "grieved the Holy Spirit," but as I write this, I feel that He is urging me on and giving me the next thing to say.  How many times can God forgive us?  His Word commands us to forgive others seventy times seven, but honestly, how many times can we repeat the same mistakes and keep receiving His love and forgiveness or the forgiveness of those that we may care about?  


As you can probably tell, I'm dealing with a very guilty conscience right now.  There are times when I feel like a failure in all things relational, including my relationship with our Heavenly Father.  I feel like I don't give Him the commitment He deserves...whether it be not spending enough time with Him, not using my spiritual gifts regularly...I feel like my heart wants to serve Him, but my mind is often preoccupied and my body is frequently lazy.  :) I make a lot of excuses, but I beg Him to bless me.  Then, when I step in line and use my gifts, or get down in my Word...I feel like He thinks it's just because I want to be blessed.  I get very confused over this whole thing.  Of course I want to be blessed, but I also really, really love God and I do enjoy spending time in His Word.  Sometimes I just wonder if He knows that?  I feel like I've let Him down with my disobedience, my not listening when I have heard Him, my doing things my own way, my sinning.  


I was reading Lamentations today and it scared me.  YES, it really scared me.  I mean, have you read Lamentations??  Let me just share with you how it starts: 


"How she sits alone, the city once crowded with people! She who was great among the nations has become like a widow.  The princess among the provinces has become a slave.  She weeps aloud during the night, with tears on her cheeks.  There is no one to offer her comfort, not one from all her lovers.  All her friends have betrayed her; they have become her enemies."  v. 1-2


I likened this city being described to how I sometimes feel.  At one time, I was extremely popular, had tons of suitors to choose from, and was happy-go-lucky, but as time has gone on, real life set in.  It goes on to tell about this great famine and how women have cooked and eaten their own children.  Pretty scary stuff!  For me, though, one of the scariest things was this, in verse 9: 


"Her uncleanness stains her skirts.  She never considered her end.  Her downfall was astonishing, there was no one to comfort her."  


What really struck me was "She never considered her end."  So many of us just do our own thing without ever considering our end.  We go about our lives saying we love God, maybe we do spend time in His word, but when He does speak, do we really listen and do we take His instructions and carry them out in our day to day?  Or do we excuse our bad behavior away by telling everybody this is "why I do what I do"...the "I wasn't loved as a child" or "I have mommy issues" or "I have daddy issues" or "I do this because someone hurt me" or "this is all I know."  Well, once we know HIM, we have to start knowing something different.  We have to start considering our end.  How will our behaviors now, affect us when we are old and gray?  Look what happened when she never considered her end...her downfall was astonishing, there was no one to comfort her.


That hurt me today, but it also helped me.  That made me think of my actions and where I will end up if I don't change and stop making excuses.  I will end up alone, sad & miserable, without ever experiencing love the way God intended or the way I feel it in my dreams.  If I chase, pursue, overtext, overtalk, overreact, overanalyze, without considering my end, one day, my end will sneak up on me and it will be too late to change.  I'll look back and say "Oh my God, what have I done?"  I can't waste another day before I start to allow and actively seek positive change in my life. 


What is your thing that you excuse?  Are you so hurt that you're just a mean, miserable person to be around?  Consider your end.  You're going to be lonely, too, because you will have ran everyone off that tried to care about you.  Are you permiscuous?  Consider your end.  A child out of wedlock isn't the worst thing to fear, disease is.  Not to mention the hit your self-esteem takes with every "conquest." Are you an over-eater?  Consider your end.  You will be unhealthy, unable to enjoy life the way God intended, and will quite possibly have a host of health problems that can lead you to an early death.  Consider. Your. End.  


No matter what your bad behaviors are.  Do everything you can to fix them.  Start by looking in the mirror and admitting to yourself that you have issues.  Then forgive yourself for being imperfect.  Everyone has issues, it's whether or not your resolve them that matters.  Your issues may have already caused pain in your life.  I know mine have, but it's not too late to start working them out.  Surround yourself with good friends who will hold you accountable, but realize that, sometimes, you are going to have to fight the battle in your mind with just you and God.  There are some things that friends, no matter how well intentioned, just can't fix.  I believe that there is a part of our journey that we all must go alone.  Just us and God.  We have to be still and surrender our fears and insecurities to the one who created us.  We have to allow Him to heal the broken places that only He can see and we so deeply feel.  


Lamentations does have a part that I simply love: 


"My soul has been deprived of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is.  Then I thought: My future is lost, as well as my hope from the Lord. Remember my affliction and my homelessness, the wormwood and the poison.  I continually remember them and have become depressed.  Yet I call this to mind, and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord's faithful love we do not perish, for His mercies never end.  They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness!  I say: The Lord is my portion, therfore I will put my hope in Him.  The Lord is good to those who wait for HIm, to the person who seeks Him." (Ch. 3: 17 - 25) 


His love is faithful & constant. His mercies are new every morning.  Every day that He allows you to awaken and see His sunrise, you have a chance to be better than you were the day before.  Don't waste another sunrise. Make today the day you start to change.  Consider your end.