How to Experience a Fresh Start

¹⁸ “Forget the former things;
do not dwell on the past.

¹⁹ See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the desert
and streams in the wasteland.

Isaiah 43:18-19

1. Don’t dwell on the past
   – Avoid allowing past failures to paralyze us
   • Always timely advice, it is never a good thing to let our mind wallow in miserable thoughts, because nothing good can ever come out of it.
   • The law of inertia applies here as well — when we are at rest, not moving or unmotivated, we will tend to stay at rest until something causes us to move, and the longer we are in such a state of ennui, the harder it is to gather up the energy to do something about it.
2. Don’t focus on what has been done and won before
   – Avoid depending on former glories to sustain you
   – Clarify your purpose, start looking ahead
   – See possibilities as God sees them
   • What’s been done is done, and what’s been won is won.  It was great when it was happening, and I do not discount that it was a wonderful experience, and exhilarating victory, but we should make space in our lives for new victories, otherwise we will stagnate in the disillusionment that we have already achieved the best that there is.
   • Whatever joy we have felt, whatever success we have experienced, it is nothing compared to what else God has planned for us.