Today I want to share again from The Spoken Word Church website devotional.
Taking the Initiative Against Despair
Rise, let us be going. —Matthew 26:46
In the Garden of Gethsemane, the disciples went to sleep
when they should have stayed awake, and once they realized what they had done it
produced despair. The sense of having done something irreversible tends to make
us despair. We say, “Well, it’s all over and ruined now; what’s the point in
trying anymore.” If we think this kind of despair is an exception, we are
mistaken. It is a very ordinary human experience. Whenever we realize we have
not taken advantage of a magnificent opportunity, we are apt to sink into
despair. But Jesus comes and lovingly says to us, in essence, “Sleep on now.
That opportunity is lost forever and you can’t change that. But get up, and
let’s go on to the next thing.” In other words, let the past sleep, but let it
sleep in the sweet embrace of Christ, and let us go on into the invincible
future with Him.
There will be experiences like this in each of our lives. We
will have times of despair caused by real events in our lives, and we will be
unable to lift ourselves out of them. The disciples, in this instance, had done
a downright unthinkable thing— they had gone to sleep instead of watching with
Jesus. But our Lord came to them taking the spiritual initiative against their
despair and said, in effect, “Get up, and do the next thing.” If we are
inspired by God, what is the next thing? It is to trust Him absolutely and to
pray on the basis of His redemption.
Never let the sense of past failure defeat your next step.
AMEN! Don't waste another moment dwelling on mistakes. Instead, learn how to bounce back up every time you miss it and the enemy will be thwarted in his attempts to steal your joy, which is your strength, and from stopping you from being the LIGHT, which is his ultimate goal! Never let him winb. Instead, along with this song from Hillsong, tell him "Not Today"!
Shalom in Him!
