We began with the letter S in the word START. S....Stop making excuses. That can be easier said than done sometimes, but it’s necessary. Here the second step:
T - Take stock
If a new start is going to take place you have to know where you’ve been and where you are at the moment. That means I need to evaluate all my experiences. I need to look at what I have left after the failure. If I've had a financial failure, I need to take stock of what finances I have left. If I've had a relational failure, I need to take stock of what relationships I have left. Whatever the failure that necessitates a new start, I need to look and say, "What is God still doing in my life? What are the options? What are my talents? What are my assets? What are my connections?"
Regardless of what's happened in the past, one of the things you have more of today is experience. God wants you to use those experiences, to learn from them and capitalize on them.
Galatians 3:4 (NCV) says, "Were all your experiences wasted? I hope not!" God never wastes an experience. He uses them to shape our lives. He uses personal experiences, vocational experiences, educational experiences, spiritual experiences and most important of all, He uses painful experiences to shape you. So as you take stock of your life in starting over, you need to ask yourself three questions.
1. What have I learned?
I know people 40, 50 years old but they don't have 40 or 50 years of experience. They've had the same year of experience 10 times or 20 times over. They've never learned anything. What did you learn from last year? What are you learning right now? If you don't sit down and think it through, you'll probably end up making the same mistakes over and over again because you didn't learn from them.
2. What are my assets?
What have I got going for me? Do I have my health? Do I have my freedom? Am I mentally sound (those of you who know me know that’s a loaded question)? Do I have friends? Is my family in my corner? Do have a relationship with God and a church family? What do I have that I can count on?
3. Who can help me?
When you need a fresh start, you need somebody by your side _ a friend, an accountability partner, a support person, a support group. Get in a small group. You need other people because you don't start over by yourself after a major failure. You need somebody else to walk along with you.
At my highest weight, I weighed 340 pounds. About 10 years ago I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and the doctor told me to lose weight. I’ve been big all of my life and have fought the battle of the bulge all of my life. But I buckled down and got busy......and lost 120 pounds.
But then I began slipping backwards. My weight went back up, very slowly, until I’d gained back about 60 pounds. I needed a fresh start. So I set out on the weight loss journey again.....and had a modicum of success. I used what I had learned in the past and what I had going for me and made some progress. But then it stopped. I needed some more help.
Enter an incredible friend. I prayed and thought about who to ask to help me, and his name came to mind, so I asked him. He agreed......and has been an encourager in the process. He’s offered great help along the way, challenged me to get more exercise and kept me accountable......and it’s working. Since I asked him to help me I’ve lost more than 25 pounds. There’s still quite a ways to go, and it’s going to take time, but with God’s help and the help of my friend, I’m going to make this happen!
Let me encourage you to Stop making excuses and to Take stock of your experiences. These are the first two steps on the road to a fresh start. And friend.....I know you can do it!
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