Fresh Starts
If you made New Year’s resolutions, you are either doing well at keeping them or you gave up two weeks ago! My goal this year is to be able to use the jaws of life at my fire department without looking like an idiot trying to lift the heavy equipment! It can be refreshing to get a chance to start over, to wipe the slate clean from last year’s mistakes and get a fresh start, like a city under a blanket of freshly fallen snow. What do you want a clean start from? Procrastination, a student’s worst enemy? Fear of failure? Fear of not being accepted? Fear of not being good enough? Worry? Poor grades or friendships?
Good news! You don’t have to wait until 2021 to be free from those things! You can start fresh right now, this very minute! How? Well, it’s simple. Jesus died so that you can have a fresh start the moment you accept it from Him. So, are you afraid of failure? Tell Him! “Dear Heavenly Father, I’m afraid of failure. Please take that fear away and forgive me for not trusting in you and your strength, amen.” It’s that simple!! What if that fear comes back two seconds later? Repeat that prayer again! Same thing with worry or procrastination or a multitude of other things. Tell Jesus about it. If he doesn’t answer or you need more help, ask again!
Once I really needed someone to listen to me talk through a problem late one night, so I called one of my good friends. The friend didn’t answer, so I called again and again until I finally got an answer. My friend answered me because I was persistent. Jesus wants us to be persistent with Him, too. In Luke 11 he tells a parable about a man who needed some bread to feed a guest. He went to one of his friends’ houses’ and knocked and knocked and knocked until the friend gave him the bread he needed. Then Jesus said: “So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened” (Luke 11:9-10 NKJV). Do you want that fresh start? Just keep asking Jesus for it, and He will give it to you.
Jade Covel is a junior studying religion.