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| Image courtesy of Photobucket.com |
Yesterday was the actual first day of school, but it was only a half-day. That doesn't really count.
Today, each student and each teacher at the school had an opportunity to "make it count."
The first day of school is like a blank piece of paper and a newly sharpened pencil. So much potential. Nothing is wrong, there are not mistakes made. It is the proverbial "clean slate."
The blank page can be daunting. Like the song lyric says,
The writer stares with glassy eyes
Defies the empty page
His beard is white, his face is lined
And streaked with tears of rage
Thirty years ago, how the words would flow
With passion and precision
But now his mind is dark and dulled
By sickness and indecision
(Neil Peart, Losing It)
The challenge is to not let what has gone before have a negative impact on your "blank page" today. That isn't to say you shouldn't let the past influence your present. I'm not even sure you have a choice in that. But take what you've done (or has been done to you) in the past and use it to make this new, blank day as good as possible.
The first chapter of the New Testament (Matthew Chapter 1) was once a blank page. How St. Matthew decided to fill that page (inspired by the Holy Spirit) is very interesting to me. He fills that first blank page with a list of names - a family tree that begins with Abraham and ends with Jesus.
In Jesus' past there is a prostitute, a couple of non-Jews, an adulterer, murderer, and several polygamists.
And yet, despite that "checkered" past, Jesus is the perfect Son of God who lived, died on the cross, and rose again from the dead to save you and me from sin, death, and the power of the devil.
Jesus gives each of us a "blank page" every day.
When we are sorry (contrite) and repent (change our ways) daily by the power of the Holy Spirit, the sin and our sinful past that filled our lives is gone (drowned and killed). A new person daily emerges and arises to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.
Think and pray about that tonight and see how your "blank page" of tomorrow turns out.
