There are consequences of what we have done, how we have lived, and we don’t escape those consequences.
I came across a marvelous expression of it in my Bible reading recently. I was reading from the Revised Standard Version, and this is what that translation says: “But then what return did you get from the things of which you are now ashamed? The end of those things is death.”(Romans 6:21)
I did with that verse what I often do with words of scripture that really grab my mind; I read it in other translations. This is the striking way Phillips put it: “Yet, what sort of harvest did you reap from those things that today you blush to remember? In the long run those things mean one thing only — death.”
What a probing question! What sort of harvest did you reap from those things that today you blush to remember?
It’s true with all of us, isn’t it? There are things in our life — things that we have done in the past, relationships, circumstances in which we became involved — all sorts of things that we blush to remember.
The harvest of those things is certain. There are consequences. We do, and should, blush when we remember our yesterdays’ sins and failures. But the Gospel is we don’t have to let yesterday rob us of tomorrow.
That well-known theologian, Yogi Berra, one of the greats of baseball, put it this way: “It’s not over till it’s over.”
I am not a huge baseball fan, but I pay attention to the baseball world because of the lessons it teaches us. Yogi was right. “It’s not over till it’s over.” In 1986, for instance, Bob Brenley, catcher for the San Francisco Giants, set a major league record with four errors in one game against the Atlanta Braves.
In that same game, he came up to bat in the ninth inning. The Braves were leading. The count was three balls and two strikes. It was the last inning. Do you know what happened? Bob Brenley, in that game in which he had set a world record for errors, hit a home run and won the game for San Francisco, seven to six.
Pay attention to Yogi, “It’s not over til it’s over.” Don’t let yesterday rob you of tomorrow.