Hurts in the Sand – Part 2 — Morning Devotions

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If you joined me yesterday morning, I was talking about the idea of writing your hurts in the sand and to carve your blessings in stone. In other words, what’s important should be the things that are engraved in stone that will last forever.

Hurts in the Sand – Part 1 — Morning Devotions

When Abraham Lincoln sought to bring one of his most vocal opponents onto his cabinet, the Secretary of War said, Mister President, I should think you’d want to destroy your enemies.

And Abraham Lincoln said, Well, am I not destroying my enemies when I make them my friends?

You know, maybe you’ve heard the saying, people are unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered, but love them anyway. If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives, but do good anyway. Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable. But be honest and frank anyway. What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight, but build anyway. Give the world the best you have and you may get kicked in the teeth, but give the world the best that you’ve got anyway.

And I will add, forgive those who hurt you, and they may hurt you again, but forgive them anyway. Not an easy thing, but it’s the best. The apostle Paul said some wise things, and there was something in Philippians chapter 3:13 where he just says five words. I forget what is behind.

And really, I think that sometimes we need to think carefully about those words: to let go of the hurts of the past.

I mean, people will hurt you. That’s a fact of life. It could well be one of the hardest things to deal with and to understand. Now, sometimes we’ve got control over that. We did something that caused a person to react in a way that hurt us. We can understand that. But then there are things that we have no control over us, you know. Somebody did something to hurt us and there’s nothing we can do.

And that word control, no control, really scares someone. The humanness in all of us wants to have some control over our relationships, what we do at work or at school. And the problem though is that we’ve never had control because this is a truth that says we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him who have been called according to His purpose.

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Now if you believe the Bible – it says all things, and that means every trial and circumstance and the hurtful things. God will make it and mould it for your benefit. So there are ways, ways actually to move past those hurts in life and, uh, to accept things. This is half the battle, I think, to accept the things that hurt you, whether the things that were intentional or the people did it intentionally or not, I think you’ve got to accept them, accept your emotions, how you feel about it, and talk it out.

Find someone, for example who is a strong Christian that you can trust that person, find a time to talk to them, rebuild. Once you’ve accepted the fact that this has happened, you can begin to reshape your mind and the things you think. You see, people, many people have distorted belief about their past, thinking that they’re worthless, that there’s something wrong, or that nobody could love them.

But I think what we’ve got to do is reshape the old habits, and they start in the mind. Pray and ask God to help you.

God sees you as very special. I mean, his thoughts outnumber the very grains of the sand. So I mean, God loves you. Renew. Let God renew your mind.

And the final thing is, I think is that you need to learn to love yourself. And don’t be so hard on yourself, because, look, we all make mistakes. We’ve all done things that are wrong, we’ve hurt other people. But that doesn’t define the person that you are this morning.

God defined you.

He’s the only one that really has the ability, and when he made you, He made you for a reason, for a purpose, and he made you the beautiful, wonderful person that you are. So accept that fact. And when you put God first, everything kind of falls into place. It’s something that you can do right now. It’s, it’s not going to be easy, but with God on your side, all these things are possible, and God will be there to encourage you.

I mean, it was Jesus who said – If you remain in me and my words remain in you, you may ask for anything you want, and it will be granted.

Let’s Pray

Heavenly Father, how true it is that we need to let go of those things, to let the hurts be written in the sand and let the waves wash them away, but to write in stone, Lord, the things that really matter, and I thank you for all the good blessings of life. Amen.

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