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I DON’T LIKE WHO I’VE BECOME (It’s the GPS’s fault)

Do you sometimes look at yourself in the mirror and don’t like to see who you’ve become? There is a solution, just as it happened with King David, who left a recipe for you to start over.

“I don’t like who I’ve become.” This statement may fit with what you feel about yourself.

When you look at your life, you realise that you started with many aspirations for your future. At this point in your life, you would like to be on another level, in another way, with your family already formed, your financial life established, and peace within you. And, contrary to all this, what you have today (not only outside, but also inside) is very far from what you expected. You have not been able to form the family you would like; you have been living day after day, working to survive, depending, possibly, on daily miracles to eat your daily bread. You have no peace within, and what hurts you the most is that when you look inside yourself and in the mirror, you ask yourself: “Who have I become? Who is that person?” You don’t recognise yourself, you don’t like what you see.

It’s like someone who took a wrong turn on the road and only realised later that they were far away.

I know a person who set up the GPS to go on a trip as soon as those GPS devices came out. And they placed the name of the city. But it was a city with the same name in another state. They followed the GPS. When they noticed, they were in another state. They had to go back hundreds of miles because they had relied on the GPS. Likewise, so many people live their lives trusting in their inner “GPS,” which is broken and flawed, called “heart”. They followed the heart, the “GPS” that the world advises to use: “Follow your heart”. Have you heard that before? Have you ever listened to this in any song, movie, or series? “Follow what you feel, what your heart tells you.” So, the person followed the misleading “GPS” and got where they didn’t want to.

However, many think like this: “How will I come back? Am I already so far from where I should be? Maybe I’ll stay right here.”

And you see many people out there who look down their noses at others. The person puffs up their chest and says: “I’m just like that. I don’t regret anything.” They don’t change their minds. Pride is greater. It’s like that lost husband in the car who doesn’t want to ask for information because pride won’t let him.

Many people are so far from what they would like to be. But pride doesn’t let them change direction. So, unfortunately, they will have to get used to this person they despise, who they hate.

But there’s another way…

When we think of examples in the Bible, we soon remember King David.

He was a man according to God’s own heart. He was an admirable person until suddenly, he succumbed to his heart’s desire and, contemplating his soldier’s wife from the balcony of his palace, he did not resist the temptation. He ordered the woman to be called and consumed his sin.

In Psalm 32, he talks about what happened to himself while he remained with it.

He begins by saying: “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, Whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity, And in whose spirit there is no deceit” (Psalm 32:1-2). I mean, he remembered the time when he had peace.

“When I kept silent, my bones grew old Through my groaning all the day long. For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; My vitality was turned into the drought of summer” (Psalm 32:3,4).

He felt older than he was. He felt sick, literally. He hated himself. He had a sense of guilt. “What have I done with my life? Who did I become? I don’t recognise myself.”

But David speaks of the solution: “I acknowledged my sin to You, And my iniquity I have not hidden. I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,” And You forgave the iniquity of my sin” (Psalm 32:5). David took off his mask. He then received forgiveness and had peace. He faced the consequences of his mistakes, but he had peace.

Who knows your pains? You feel this contempt because you have not yet repented or made peace with God, with other people and, especially, with yourself?

So, follow the recipe from Psalm 32. God will forgive you and allow you to rebuild your life. Take this opportunity. Don’t stay proud. Make peace with God, with you and with people.

Think about it by meditating on the message in the video above.

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Bishop Renato Cardoso