I remember it like I remember a kid stealing my lunch money
in elementary.
What high school do you go too?
“Everett,” I replied.
An extremely shocked look came across the face of this guy at
a Western Michigan party.
“Dude, I can’t believe you go there,” he replied.
“Why?” I replied.
“Man, there are so many fights, drugs, weapons and guns
there. I couldn’t imagine going to
school there.”
“It’s really not bad, I like going to school there,” I
stated.
Still shocked, he stated again he couldn’t imagine going to
a school with so much crazy stuff going on there. He followed up telling me this story…
The only bad thing that happened at Bath was at a
party/bonfire was a guy was drunk and got into his dad’s gun collection. He was joking around with a shot gun; it went
off and killed one of our friends. That
guy went away for a little while but we heard the year he was going to come
back to school the next year. So me and
some of my friends went to the school principal and told him if he steps into
the school we will kill him. He didn’t
come back to school that next year and it was a good thing, we would have
killed him. That was the only crazy
thing that happened at Bath, but man, I could never go to Everett.
Needless to say, I had an extremely shocked look on my face.
I said, that incident was crazier than anything that
happened in all of my years of going to Lansing Public Schools.
He couldn’t believe me.
The past does not decide your future.
Just because your parents might have done wrong things like
abuse, drugs, excessive alcohol doesn’t mean you will or give you the right
too.
Some of my parents (I come from a multiple divorce family)
struggled with alcohol and other forms of abuse.
It doesn’t mean I have too.
I have been reading through the book of Acts.
In it Paul went from not believing in Jesus and actually
standing up to kill Christians.
Yet his life changed, Jesus changed his life around and soon
he was sharing the Gospel message with people.
From killing Christians to become a Christian, Paul had a
major change in his life.
In Chapter 22, Paul told his life story and said some harsh
words towards a group of people at the time.
They wanted to beat him.
As they got ready to flog him, he mentions he was a Roman
citizen.
It’s stated in verse 29…
“Those who were about to question him withdrew
immediately. The commander himself was
alarmed when he realized that he had put Paul, a Roman citizen in chains.”
At the time you were not allowed to harm a Roman citizen
without a trial.
The commander could have been in major trouble.
Paul played a card from his past.
He was a Roman citizen, but he was so much more.
It is not bad to remember the past.
It does not make our future.
When I got married my dad (Who was on his third marriage)
told me this…
“You know how marriage is not supposed to look.”
Such powerful words.
Can you be someone who learns from others mistakes?
I loved the fact I went and graduated from Everett High
School.
I will take all the weird looks and bad things that people
say about that school.
It helped shaped me to the person I am today.
Same with the bad situations I went through as a kid.
I might have come from an abusive household at times, but it
doesn’t make my family today.
Remembering the past is not bad, learn from it.
Mimic the good from the past and change the bad to make it
better.
If you have fallen into the same problems of the past, today
is a new day.
Jesus gives everyone another chance.
How do you want the future to be?
What can you do today to start working for that improvement?
If Paul can change his life from a man of killing to a man
of grace and mercy through Jesus, you can too.
Have a great day.
