I STOOD SMILING, my newly-polished Vega Wonder five-string banjo in hand, before a packed gymnasium at a campus talent show. Directly in front of me in the audience, less than 10 feet away, I spotted a girl I’d been dating. She wanted to date others and had told me so only a day before. As my introduction faded and the lights dimmed, the spotlight beamed brightly on me. But my heart sank as I watched her gaze slowly move toward the floor. The new guy—with the Cheshire Cat grin—placed his arm tightly around her shoulder.
Without delay I began to play a happy, upbeat ditty, and suddenly one of the strings popped. I tried to compensate, but in the next moment, the unthinkable happened: a second string broke. I stood for what seemed like an eternity, frozen with horror. I’ve no recollection of what I said to the crowd, but as I slinked away the gym was silent, no sound, until I tripped over a microphone cord. I’ve no memory of anyone ever saying anything about it to me. I remember wishing it were a dream. But. It really happened.
Twenty years later, on a trip to Nashville, I heard a song on Christian radio that spoke of humiliating moments in life. We all understand that God is Lord of here and now and the future, but how difficult it can be to accept God as The Lord of our past. I wondered as I listened how God could fix something in the unchangeable past.
Among other embarrassments through time, I recalled what happened that night in the gym. But that song had touched a bruised place in my soul, and as it came to a close I tearfully sang the refrain, "I know that you can find a way to heal every yesterday of my life. So, do what you want to do: be the Lord of my past."
Be careful what you pray.
Memories are such interesting phenomena. We can relive moments of our own choosing, knowing they're not real. They're part of the past, gone, and will never return, yet perhaps can be useful. We can decide to better handle situations in the future. We may also wonder why it happened. What can I learn about myself?
Tonight, another thirty years has passed, and God brought that old embarrassing memory back to life again. Why now? All this happened fifty years ago! I suspect, perhaps someone somewhere may need to know that when you've failed big, and you finally turn the matter over to the Master of everything, everything will turn out well, finally.
We humans are exceptional at making mistakes. As I sat in the quiet and thought over my years, I realized I had made many mistakes. Bigger blunders than popping a string in a silly talent show. The more I thought, the more I imagined that my greatest life skill evidently turned out to be failure.
But then I realized that for every fault, there was soon a fix. If that happened once, it might be coincidence. But if it happened over and over and over for fifty years. . . no way that could be luck. Once again, I remembered driving on the interstate singing the song that changed me. And suddenly my heart filled with Joy. God had listened to my heart. Fifty years! This is my year of Jubilee. This slave is set free. My debt, forgiven.
For a loving Father has proven, in a most curious way, His enduring love toward me. He used time to teach His most awesome lesson. He will do the same for you if you ask, believing. From now on, I have no need to fear nor cause to ruminate about any shortcomings, for the Creator of my existence WILL, as He promised, finish weaving a beautiful work He began.
I don’t understand everything that has happened, or why, or claim to know the way God works in human lives. However, I know beyond the shade of a shadow of a doubt that HE IS most assuredly The Lord of the past, now, and forever.
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