Writers yearn to say something profound. And I am no exception. As a Christian, I yearn to say something inspiring. As a wife, I yearn to say something endearing. As a mother and grandmother, I yearn to say something enlightening. And as a friend, I yearn to say something trustworthy.
As I writer, I yearn to convey all those things in all my writings. Of course, not everything I write is going to do that. But the joy of writing is the anticipation that one of my words might reach someone’s heart and bless them.
I often think of life like writing. I yearn to do something outstanding in my life. And just like each post I write offers an opportunity to say something profound, each day offers an opportunity to do something outstanding. We all know that not everything we do in our lives will be outstanding, but we still have the joy of anticipating that we might do an outstanding thing today.
In comparing life to writing, I often think of New Year’s Day like a ‘backspace’ key. Before you stop reading because that sounds like a ridiculous statement, please hear me out.
Picture yourself typing on your computer’s keyboard. The blinking cursor is your current location. If you review what precedes your cursor and you don’t want to keep it, your backspace key erases it. It is a handy tool to use in editing one’s writing. For any number of reasons, we may want to erase our prior typing and start over with fresh new words.
In life, the backspace key can erase bad memories of things like blunders or heartaches. We know that we can’t change the past, but we can keep it from hurting us now by managing our thoughts. And the new year is a good opportunity to accomplish that. The old year is past, and our cursor is blinking on a brand-new year. We can use New Year’s Day as a backspace key to erase the previous things that are weighing us down in our minds and start over with fresh new thoughts. Of course, any day can serve as a backspace key, but the day that ushers in a new year seems to give us a little extra impetus to want to put the past in the past. And in-so-doing, we can have renewed excitement for the future.
There is a corresponding action when using the backspace key, which is replacing what was erased. This is done in mainly two ways. First, by simply joining the words prior to the erasure to those after. This not only removes the words in between, but also the space that they were occupying. Think of how difficult it would be to read this blog if every time I used the backspace key, I left a blank space. I t co uld be nea rly imp oss ible t o r ead . Our minds aren’t designed to work with voids. We must remove the empty spaces or fill them. Our thoughts must be whole. Therefore, the second option is to replace the erased words with new ones. This is basically filling the space with new thoughts. It is a correction rather than a deletion.
In our minds, some thoughts need to be deleted, and some thoughts need to be corrected. For instance, the memory of that scary movie I watched in Junior High, needed to be deleted and no space left for its return. But the fear I had of a boogie man in my closet, needed to be corrected with right teaching. This is an ongoing process because we are always thinking. As adults, we don’t have the same fears that we had as children, but fears can linger none-the-less. We can use the New Year’s Day backspace key to facilitate deliverance from those fears. We can kick out those fears and leave no room for them to come back, or we can correct those fears by right believing.
The backspace key works for fears, memories, bad habits, and anything that is bringing us down. Some people live a lifetime under the shadow of a mistake, or behind the closed doors of fear. At any point we can utilize the process of correction or deletion and rewrite our thoughts. We can overcome the negatives that persist in clouding our minds by changing our thinking.
We can start the new year with new plans, new ideas and new resolve. We can change the way we think and thereby change our actions. We can succeed where we may have failed in the past. And just as our goal in writing is to replace the words that we erase with better words, we can replace our old thoughts with more profitable ones.
And the only guaranteed profitable thoughts come from thinking God’s Word. Putting God’s Word in our minds and changing our thoughts accordingly is the key to power. That power enables us to change and be better; to grow and flourish; to overcome any adversity. We can utilize that power because God has given us the gift of holy spirit, which in inherently powerful. And since it is ours, we have the God-given authority to use it.
Most all of us want 2022 to be better than 2021, even if 2021 wasn’t a bad year. 2022 certainly can be a great year if we keep our thinking aligned with God’s Word. If we use that backspace key to erase the negatives that need erasing. And if we replace those negatives with the glorious light of God’s Word in our minds.
Philippians 3:13
Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,
Note to my readers: HAPPY NEW YEAR!! Thanks for reading!