New beginnings

So let us stop going over the basic teachings about Christ again and again. Let us go on instead and become mature in our understanding. Surely we don’t need to start again with the fundamental importance of repenting from evil deeds and placing our faith in God.
Hebrews 6:1 NLT


Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end. (Seneca)
Stop for a moment to think about the last time you chose to begin something new. Did you simply add to the stuff you had already been doing or did you actually find your new beginning required you to put something else away? In a physical sense, I cannot mow and weed eat at the same time. I cannot stir the stew and chop the vegetables at the same time...one leads to the other, but both aren't done at the same time. Why do we then think we can just go on and on in the same learning we have been taught without ever beginning anew to explore what God has for us? Yes, we maintain a great foundation of fundamental truth, but then we go on to add in more and more of his truth into our lives. This is how we grow out of some habits that need to be broken and grow into other ones that amply replace those bad ones!

Broken hearts don't heal by just beginning where they left off. They heal because of new beginnings. As Seneca said, one beginning comes to an end and the new one starts. There is freshness needed because the old had many wounds into which one needed health to come again. Healing is about the diseased being removed and then the new life or health taking that place. Places in our heart and mind can be too preoccupied to allow new beginnings at times. Sometimes we need to let go of some stuff to make room for the new!

Letting go is part of beginning. I have had too much stuff stored in the garage for a while again - clothes I no longer fit into since losing my weight, bits and pieces of this and that which gathers because we get something new as a gift and the old is now no longer needed. If I want to reclaim some of the space in the garage I must load it in the car and take it to the local thrift shop, donating it there for others to use as they are able to.  I must let go in order to have room for anything new to ever begin in that garage - or they will one day call me the "hoarder lady"! 

Just as with the garage space, the space in our heart occupied by hatred, envy, bitterness, lust, pride, and the litany of other sins that keep us tethered to one spot in our lives, we must let go of them if we are ever to have the space for what Christ wants to build into our lives. The space in our minds consumed by repeatedly running the list on all the ways another has hurt us, or even ruminating over the things we think we must have in life in order to be successful, can become too consumed for Christ to begin to affect our thoughts. We have to let go of those in order for the new beginning of fresh and vibrant thought to take place. So, if we think about it, letting go isn't really going back to square one again - it is simply letting go of the weight that has occupied the space and beginning to allow a focus there once again, but in an entirely new direction. Just sayin!

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