Leftovers

When it comes to dinner in our household of four, we typically make enough food so that there are leftovers.  These leftovers typically become the next day’s lunch for me and/or my wife or an after-school snack for the kids.  To accomplish this, the kids usually “pack up” the leftovers in storage containers.  On one recent evening, I noticed that one of the kids was overfilling the container.  This child (who will remain nameless), filled the storage container to the very top.  When I explained to the strong willed teen that the top was not going to be able to seal without causing some of the food to spill out, I was met with an, “I got this…I know what I’m doing…I know that it won’t spill…just watch Dad.”

I sat back and thought,”OK…do it your way and you’ll have to deal with the consequences.”  The determined teen proceeded and found out the hard way that Father knows best.  I saw the future play out while the teen was just living and experiencing life in the moment.

How often are we like my teenager?  We "overstuff" our lives and we ignore the fact that we have limited capacities.  We ignore the signs, the wisdom, the warnings and the very voice of God as we fill our lives with more activities, more relationships, more commitments and more cares that we were designed to “hold”.   We were not designed to live burned out and overextended lives.

Sadly, we often drag the burdens, the bruises and the baggage of our past into our future.  God designed us with our ultimate futures in mind.  He knows our assignments and the capacity that we need in order to complete His plans for us.  If we carry our past into our future, we should be prepared to “make a mess”, just like my child did.  God wants us to take time with Him to deal with our past pains, failures and unfinished business, but he doesn’t want us to live in the past and allow our past to determine our future.   Conversely, yesterday’s expectations, miracles, provisions and deliverance were for yesterday.  Don’t drag them into tomorrow and limit your view and expectation of what God can and will do.

Isaiah 43:16-19 New Living Translation (NLT)

I am the Lord, who opened a way through the waters,
    making a dry path through the sea.
17 I called forth the mighty army of Egypt
    with all its chariots and horses.
I drew them beneath the waves, and they drowned,
    their lives snuffed out like a smoldering candlewick.

18 “But forget all that—
    it is nothing compared to what I am going to do.
19 For I am about to do something new.
    See, I have already begun! Do you not see it?
I will make a pathway through the wilderness.
    I will create rivers in the dry wasteland.

What are you carrying from your past that you need to deal with to make room for what God has in store for your future?  Is the weight of your past holding you down?  God wants to lift you to higher heights, but you can’t safely move forward if you are constantly looking behind you.

Yesterday’s victories and defeats belong to yesterday.  God is preparing us for GREATER THINGS!!!  He wants us to empty ourselves so that He can fill us with all that He needs to in order for us to take advantage of the GREAT THINGS that He has in store for us; however, but He can’t fill us to capacity, if part of our containers (our lives) are currently full of “leftovers”.

Be Blessed!!!

B