howeenterprise.com
Faith
Monday, January 2, 2017
Page #8
by Roger Tidwell
future? Several things I would like with last years’ successes. to suggest. There is always a greater success First of all, we should leave behind ahead of us. There is always a our past failures. I suppose the greater goal. With God there is most “successful” Christian that always greater blessings and ever lived was the Apostle Paul. greater things. Listen to what he said, Philippians 3:13 “forgetting the things that are I mentioned Joshua earlier. Joshua behind me, reaching forth to the is someone that could have lived in things that are before me, I press the glory of the past. Joshua could for the mark of the prize of the have lived in the glory of God high calling of God in Christ delivering the Hebrews out of Jesus.” Paul was successful Egypt. He was there at the Red because he put his past failures Sea when God parted the water and FBC Howe Pastor Roger Tidwell behind him. allowed the Hebrews to cross over on dry land. He could have lived It’s hard to believe that another year A second thing we should leave in the glory of the time he led the is now upon us. It seems like only behind are our past hurts. I don’t yesterday that we were at the start of understand why, but we like to 2016. Time certainly can get away bring them up again and again. from us if we’re not careful. The We like to talk to our friends about great thing about a new year is that what happened to us in the past, we have a whole year ahead of us how somebody wronged us, or with nothing but time. Time is a how our past is so painful. wonderful thing, but there are some Here’s the problem if we don’t put things you can’t do with time. You our past hurts behind us. Every can’t save time, borrow time or buy time we bring up a painful time. What you can do however is experience from the past our use time wisely. emotions go back there with you. Then we relive that experience all One way to use time wisely is to over again and that keeps us from look to ahead instead of dwelling in looking ahead to what God wants the past. to do in our future. The Old Testament book of Joshua begins with God calling Joshua to be Israel’s new leader. He did that by reminding Joshua that Moses was dead and that Joshua was now to lead the people to the Promise Land. For Joshua, it was a new day, a day to look ahead, a day to look at the future. That’s a pretty good example for us as we begin a new year. It’s okay to remember the past or honor the past, but our focus should be on what’s ahead. That’s easy to say, but hard to do. So what can we do to put the past behind us and look toward the
Some of us were offended, some were criticized, some had a boss let them down, some were treated unfairly, maybe some went through the breakup of a marriage. As painful as the 2016 may have been, we need to move forward in 2017. Why? Because God has a great and a wonderful plan for every one of us. The third thing to leave behind might be a surprise but we may need to leave our past victories behind us. Now don’t get me wrong, it is okay to build on last year’s successes, just don’t stop
Israelites in defeating the Amalekites. But as the book of Joshua begins, God says to him, “I have some new things. I have a new day I have a new future. I have something greater than you have experienced in the past.” With God the best is always yet to come. No matter how glorious the past, God has a future that is better than anything we have experienced before! Therefore, as God’s people, we need to embrace that future. Let’s put the failures, hurts and successes of 2016 behind and look ahead to a wonderful 2017!
From the Middle School Principal's Desk I wanted to pass along a couple of resources to help support math learning at home. Many students struggle with one or two areas of math. Understanding how to add, subtract, multiply and divide whole numbers fractions, decimals and percentages is a challenge for many of our students but a required part of the Texas standards. Here are some resources:
http://www.education.com/ activity/math/ This has fun activities you can do at home over the break to keep math skills sharp. Kahn Academy: https://www.khanacademy.org/ math This is great for helping when students are stuck on homework and/ or need support in understanding a concept or process.
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