Nothing Wasted - Give Bad Days to the Redeemer

Every so often, you enter a place you've been before and nothing has changed.  The sights, the smells, most of the people, no change.  And every memory is triggered.  ACU Leadership Camps this summer was that place for me.  And so I find myself reflecting.

I remember last summer and how hard it was.  I was so much like an Israelite... refusing to listen because of the broken spirit, because of the bondage.  Oh, and how I wish I could do it over!  Because I have this cry in my heart to spend my one life well.  But some days, I don't. Things aren't clicking and I'm a tired, broken mess.  And on days like that, I tend to cry, "Wasted!"  I made a mistake (or a dozen); I wasted the day (or the whole season!).  

But to spend a life well, does not mean to live a life perfectly, and while that may be painfully obvious to many, I need that reminder to keep me sane.

Bad days happen.  Whether it is our own ineptitude or a series of unfortunate circumstances, we have bad days.  And sometimes it's deeper than that.  We live in a broken world.  We are broken people.  We walk wounded and weary.  We are impaired by the chains that bind us.  And it is bad.    

But then there is this: Jesus redeems.  And to redeem is to do more than make it okay or to forgive.  To redeem is to take something that seems wasted and broken and worthless and make it beautiful.

He makes something not just out of nothing, but out of that which I could call waste!  My mistakes, my bad days.  He declares nothing wasted!  

So I'm learning to stop striving and start trusting.  To show myself a little grace because God shows me grace and who am I to deny what He freely gives?  I choose to trust in His goodness and infinite power and I give bad days to the Redeemer.