In my last post( read here) I wrote that doing something wrong is not irreversible. I had been doing up the straps on my knee brace in the wrong order for about twenty-nine years.
The brace is still a saviour for me when it comes to sports – especially hockey – but for the last several months my knee has not been feeling very good. It’s been sore and sometimes a little swollen.
But since I discovered the proper order to tighten the straps on my brace, it has made a huge difference.
For the last while, I needed at least a day after I played for my knee to feel good enough for me to consider playing hockey again. Now my knee no longer feels sore, unstable, and tender for a period of time.
Not only have I corrected the wrong I had been committing for nearly thirty years, but in correcting that wrong I have seen an improvement in my knee’s stability.
It is never too late to consider correcting something you have, for a long time, been doing wrong.
When we elect a government, that year after year puts the country into a deeper and deeper debt position with seemingly uncontrolled spending, it is still correctable.
We’ve seen it in the past. Where a government has been in power for years and an election has brought a new party into power, that change has brought the country back into fiscal responsibility.
It’s also true with your conscience.
We all have one. It’s that little inner sensation that tells us when we are doing something wrong or doing something right.
Time after time we can go against our conscience in doing wrong and, after a while, we won’t have any sensation regarding that wrong. We will become numb to it; it won’t even register in our conscience any more.
This can go on for years – just like all the years I was doing up my brace in the wrong order.
But it is not irreversible.
If we admit we’ve done wrong – even though we don’t have a sensation about it from years and years of doing it – we can still correct it.
And when we start to correct the wrong, the amazing thing is that the sensation starts to slowly come back. Our conscience has never left us; it just grows quiet when we silence it. It can come back, be renewed, and be healthy again.
I have a friend who smoked for years and years. He never thought anything of it, never considered anyone around him who didn’t smoke.
Finally, after decades of smoking, he quit. Now he can’t stand the smell of cigarettes; he can’t bear being in a space where others are smoking. He thinks it’s insensitive of them to smoke with others present. His sensitivity came back.
A long history of doing wrong is never irreversible.
Here’s the thing: You may have turned your back on God for years. Maybe you’ve never considered Him, never cared for Him. Don’t think your years of neglect and possible abusiveness towards God is irreversible. No, you can decide to reverse your wrongs by believing in Christ to save you from all the wrongs you’ve done for however many years you’ve been doing them. The Bible says you are then a new creation. It’s reversible.
That’s Life!
Paul
Question: What have you previously been thinking is irreversible for you? Leave your comments and questions below.