The Gift of A Do Over

Do-Over

How many times have you wanted to do something over?

“If I could just take back what I said”.

“If I could take the test again.”

HERE’S MY FAVORITE – “If I had ONE MORE CHANCE!”

In Golf it is the MULIGAN!

In monopoly it is the “GET OUT JAIL FREE” card.

On Wheel of fortune it is the “FREE SPIN”

I think my favorite was the Omega 13 from the movie Galaxy Quest. It was a space movie with Tim Allen where in the end of the movie he uses the Omega 13 machine which transports the users back in time 13 seconds — enough to change one mistake!

How many times would we use that?

I REMEMBER IN BASEBALL
We would play for hours. But sometimes the play was too close to call. Each team thought they had the right opinion and all kinds of arguing would bust out. Anger, bantering, name calling, even shoving would take place over the next five minutes. However the game must go on. The future of other games was in the balance.

So when the right amount of time had passes someone would shout out, “Do OVER!” Now you couldn’t call it too early! IT would only result in more arguing, BUT AT THE RIGHT TIME IT WAS one of childhood’s most powerful rites.

Do OVER’S rule over the laws of space and time.

DO OVER’s allow you to live beyond the redundant “Ground Hog” Day the Bill Murray found himself in. You don’t have to live the same day over and over again. Take a new spin, step out of the reality you find yourself trapped in. 

My sons would relate “DO OVER” more with VIDEO GAMES that baseball games.
 I would watch my boys rent a VIDEO game and play non-stop for two days until they could beat the game. The way they did it was trial and error and 3000 DO OVERS!

This is so different from the “give me the instructions manual” generation.

In the movie City Slickers, Billy Crystal says to his pal Bruno Kirby,  ”Your life is a do-over,” “You’ve got a clean slate.”

Crystal is addressing his pal who, nearing 40, feels he is at a dead-end. “I’ve wasted my life.” Brunno Kirby’s character laments over poor choices and the consequences he is living with. Crystal tells him that he can start over again. His life can be a do-over.

EVER FEEL LIKE YOU NEED A DO OVER?
You don’t have to be in a life stage to feel that way. The need of a DO OVER can be the result of poor choices that everyone of us make.

A Do OVER is about the Grace that God has available for each of us everyday of our life!

YOU CAN EXPERIENCE A DO OVER!

YOU SEE THERE ARE TWO PRINCIPLES THAT ARE KEY TO DO OVERS: UNCONDITIONAL LOVE and REPENTANCE.

Unconditional Love
David, whom the Bible calls “A man after God’s own heart” had committed some horrible sins.

He committed adultery and in effect murder. He is convicted by Nathan the Prophet and repents of his sins. We see this recorder in , Psalms 51:1-2

Have mercy on me, O God, because of your unfailing love. Because of your great compassion, blot out the stain of my sins. Wash me clean from my guilt. Purify me from my sin.

God’s unfailing love can make all the difference in the world!

God’s great compassion allows Him to love YOU unconditionally. LISTEN TO THIS SCRIPTURE:

Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
Lamentations 3:21-23

God’s Unconditional Love is then TEAMED UP WITH Repentance

David continues:
Psalms 51:16-17
You do not desire a sacrifice, or I would offer one. You do not want a burnt offering. The sacrifice you desire is a broken spirit. You will not reject a broken and repentant heart, O God.

WHAT IS IT THAT GOD DESIRES?
He desires that we come to Him with an attitude of repentance!

Isaiah 59:1-2
Listen! The LORD’s arm is not too weak to save you, nor is his ear too deaf to hear you call. It’s your sins that have cut you off from God. Because of your sins, he has turned away and will not listen anymore.

We say we know God but in reality MANY TIMES we are far, far, FAR away. We have isolated ourself from HIM by our own choices. God longs to have a relationship with each of us but He will not violate our free will.

WE MUST COME TO GOD WITH AN ATTITUDE OF REPENTANCE.

CONSIDER I John 1:8-9
If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

LISTEN TO PSALMS 130 and learn how to get right with God.

From the depths of despair, O LORD, I call for your help. Hear my cry, O Lord. Pay attention to my prayer. 

LORD, if you kept a record of our sins, who, O Lord, could ever survive? But you offer forgiveness that we might learn to fear you. I am counting on the LORD; yes, I am counting on him. I have put my hope in his word…for with the LORD there is unfailing love.

Paul the Apostle learned the real secret of the DO OVER!

Look at what he says in Philippians 3:13
 
“I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead”

So what is the secret to the DO OVER?

IT IS ALL IN THE WAY WE NAVIGATE!

You see we think of life as a highway. We think all we need to do is go in one direction full speed and we will reach our destination.

NEWSFLASH – LIFE IS NOT A HIGHWAY.
There are too many variables. It is more like sailing a boat, orienteering our way across the wilderness or sending a rocket to the moon.

FIRST TIME I HEARD THIS WAS READING Charles Garfield’s book, PEAK PERFORMERS

Garfield was a “fresh out of Grad school” psychologist working at NASA, during the moon launch. He was amazed at their ability to put together this UNBELIVABLE TASK. They could keep working at this PEAK PERFORMANCE LEVEL. He talked about the incredible LET DOWN after the moon launch was over. All those YEARS of work were gone, now what. He pointed out that they did not know how to Re-CORRECT their course. He gave an example straight from NASA itself.

He shared that a rocket going to the moon doesn’t go on just one trajectory. It would never make it. It would get way off course. One degree off over thousands upon thousands of miles could be a horrific miss at the other end. The weightlessness of space, the gravitational forces, all of this plays into affect.

Instead A TRUE TRIP TO THE MOON was a series of re-corrections. Garfield went on to say that PEAK PERFORMERS re-correct their course over and over again.

In wilderness training class we would be given a compass and a map and have to trek for two days and reach our destination. Miles of mountains, forest, rivers, gorges all made a straight line impossible. The best way was to get your bearings on the map, pick the place you want to go and go sections at a time. You would get your fix on an object not to far away and zigzag your way their.

Sailing you are subject to the waves and wind. Either could send you off track but working together, watch out! Instead you pick an landmark on the shore and start to go toward it. When you are off course, you find it again, adjust the rudder and go for it again.
LIFE IS LIKE THAT!
Paul shows us how to re-correct our course. LOOK AT II TIMOTHY 3:16 

“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.”

Here we see a good analogy to the orienteering. Life is like going on the trail. There are kinds of variables.

First, Paul is saying that God’s word was given to us FOR TEACHING. It shows us where the trail is. “HERE IS MY WAY, WALK IN IT!” “Your word is like a LAMP UNTO MY FEET!”

NEXT we see that the word of God is for REBUKING – It is there to help us when we get off the trail. It is shouting DO OVER!!!

Third the Bible is good for CORRECTING –  It is for showing us how to get back on the trail.
This is where God shows us HOW TO DO EVERYTHING OVER.

I’m amazed in counseling how many times someone married to an alcoholic or abusive spouse will get divorced and DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN! That is not the kind of DO OVER WE ARE TALKING ABOUT.

FINALLY, the Bible is for TRAINING. It is for showing us how to stay on the trail. We learn from our DO OVERS. God is busy working in our life showing us how to mature in Him.

THERE IS ONE MORE KIND OF DO OVER

SOMETIMES WE ARE FORCED INTO A DO OVER THAT WAS NOT OF OUR DOING LIKE SICKNESS, DEATH, CASTATROPHE AND ACTS OF VIOLENCE

What do we do then? How can we survive such circumstances?
I received a call from my brother on a particular Saturday morning.
I have never heard a groan like I heard that morning. “He’s dead! My Paul is dead, he cried on the other end of the phone. That morning Paul, Rod’s 13 year old son was in the back seat of a car next to his brother Philip. His mother was driving, Paul was reading out loud from the Bible. A truck going northbound on I-75 hit a patch of ice, lost control slid across the medium and collided with there car. It was a side impact. Everyone was alright but Paul. The impact broke his neck, killing him instantly.

In Hebrews 11 is a famous chapter on faith. It is a glorious chapter. The author gives a long litany of object lessons of faith from the Bible with names of people we have all heard of; Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jacob, Joseph. He ends the chapter writing this:

And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies. Women received back their dead, raised to life again.

But then the author changes right in the middle of the paragraph. Doesn’t even miss a beat and shares a sobering portion for those who have received HORIFFIC DO OVERS. The author of Hebrew writes:

Others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection. Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. They were stoned; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated— the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground.
 These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.

Paul himself was plagued by what he called a “thorn in his flesh.” Three times he asked God to remove it but instead, Paul writes:

God said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
II Corinthians 12:9 

Nine years after Paul died I was speaking in Detroit. My brother Rod came. He had been struggling with God ever since his son died. That particular evening, as I was finishing my brother got up and left the sanctuary. He later told me that he went downstairs to cry. He called out to God and said, “I want back, I don’t understand but I want back.

God had taken my brother from a going through a horrific time to a DO OVER.

WHAT ABOUT YOU?

What DO OVER do you need?
Is it freedom from an addiction?

Is it forgiveness for something that has bothered your conscience?

Is it strength to undo something you have done or to recommit yourself to what you know you need to do?

Is it the need to accept God’s FORGIVENESS and UNCONDITIONAL LOVE?

Is it time to come to grips from that horrible situation you went through, to forgive, let go, to TRUST AGAIN!

Whatever YOUR SITUATION IS – HE IS THE GOD OF THE DO OVER. Come to Him today!

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