FRESH START
A few years ago myself and Simon used to watch a TV programme called ‘Tidying up with Marie Kondo’. Marie went into people’s homes and helped them to declutter and re-organise so that people could have a fresh start! A new way of living is what the people needed and Marie would simply ask each family member to stop for a moment and take a look around so that they could get rid of anything that did not bring them joy!
It’s funny now but after watching the programme Simon and I instantly started to look at things in our home differently. We would ask each other “Does that bring joy for you?” Before you think we are crazy, I’m going to defend ourselves by telling you that it wasn’t just us who watched and acted on this programme, everyone we knew was doing the same. The show was such a hit with the viewers but why was that? I could be wrong when I say this but the show was first aired on 1st January 2019 which means people were watching it on New Year’s Day, the day that most people want to declutter every aspect of their lives and have a fresh start!
It feels strange saying that before I became a Christian I always believed that you had to wait until New Year’s Day to have a fresh start but I did and it was because that was the day of new beginnings right? The day that you started to look forward, forgetting the past and setting the year off with New Year resolutions. I am so thankful that my faith is all about a fresh start which can happen at any time!
2 Corinthians 5:17 says “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. The old has gone, the new is here!”
All over scripture we can see fresh starts and not every fresh start begins with looking forward instead it starts with looking back! When the people of God were rescued from slavery in Egypt the first thing God did was make them celebrate with a Passover meal as it was a day to remember. It was like God was saying before you look forward I want you to look back! Before you are freed fully, I want you to remember who freed you! Again when the people got to the Red Sea with Pharaoh’s army right behind them, the sea parts allowing them to cross and as soon as they crossed over onto dry land at the edge of their fresh start, the first thing Moses did was call everyone together saying “ Remember today”. In other words Moses was saying before you look forward, I want you to look back!
The people being freed then got to the edge of the promised land, the Jordan river was right between them and when they finally crossed over the Jordan river, the first thing the people did was go back and get 12 stones and stack them up as a memorial to help them remember. Before looking forward they wanted to look back! Over the last few days Simon and I have been looking back and it’s actually a year today that we voiced aloud to a beautiful couple what God was putting on our hearts; that we were going to leave everything behind and plant a Church. We are finding it so helpful to go back through Simon’s journal which details every emotion, every scripture we were given and now every promise that God has fulfilled! Remembering is helping us to be grateful so that we can look forward to our next fresh start! Before we move forward it is so good to just take a moment and look back.
Looking back and remembering should be a big deal to anyone who follows Jesus. It reminds us that we are known to Jesus and loved by Him. We are forgiven; we are made new and have a fresh start. The reason we have a fresh start is because of Jesus and it’s good to remember what He did for each of us! He laid down His life so that we could have a fresh start! I love that when the disciples shared communion with Jesus after he rose from the dead, they had the Passover meal. Jesus gathered them together and showed them that they had a fresh start; they had not been freed from slavery in Egypt like Moses but this was better as they had been freed from sin! They were told to ‘Remember’ and we are told to do the same. Our fresh start comes from Jesus and it’s good to take a moment to remember what God has done before we start to look forward and dream about what God could do in the fresh start that we have now.
I don’t know what your goals are but we can be the spouse that we want to be, the parent that we want to be, the follower of Jesus we want to be and the great thing is that we get to plan it with God in the centre of it all. When we look back and see His goodness we look forward differently and become excited about what He has in store for us in our next fresh start! Studying the life of Moses shows us that over and over again God gave Moses a fresh start and He wants to do the same with us. We don’t need to live with clutter or bad habits; we can choose today to be a fresh start!
Psalm 90 is a prayer of Moses that scholars believe was written right after Moses and the people were rescued from Egypt. The first half of the Psalm is Moses looking back and remembering all that God had done and then in the middle of the Psalm he starts to look forward.
Psalm 90 Verse 12 is right at the edge of his fresh start and he gives a great piece of advice that you wouldn’t expect when thinking of a fresh start. It says this:
“Teach us to number our days so that we may gain a heart of wisdom”.
Normally the advice we are given for a fresh start is that we have to believe in ourselves more or we need to just give it all we have got but Moses doesn’t tell us to seize the day, he tells us to number our days! The truth is our days are limited which means the fresh starts we can have are also limited. Our days have to count; we don’t want to waste our fresh starts because every fresh start that we all have is eventually going to end at some point! They will either end with us saying “I’m so glad I did” or “I wish I hadn’t”.
Today we need God to teach us to number our days so that we may gain a heart of wisdom so that all of our ‘fresh starts’ end with “I’m so glad I did”.
By Valda Rushton 10th May 2023
