One evening when my daughter and family were visiting with us and we were watching TV, my oldest grandson blurted out, “Stop granddad, go back, I want to see that again.” But, we had only “rabbit ears” reception on our TV and he didn’t realize g-mom and granddad didn’t have the capability on our TV like he had at home.

A few months ago my wife and I had satellite TV installed. It has many “perks” that we never had on the old antenna reception. A couple of the things we now enjoy are the pause and replay. If we want to leave the room, we can pause the TV and come back to it later. If we didn’t hear something clearly or wish to see a scene again, we can replay it. All of us have been used to instant replay for years now through the sports world.

What if we could pause or replay life? Is there anything you would change about your life? What took place in 2013 that you would not want replayed in 2014? Just think of all the things you would refrain from saying or doing the first time around. I’m sure we all have some of those, and for that reason if we had the benefit of “replay” we would gain a lot of perspective on life we missed the first time.

You may have said something to someone or said something about someone that was hurtful and wish you could “delete.” So beginning today, think before you speak and pause before you act.

You may have neglected someone you should have spent more time with, such as a spouse, a child, or a parent. Your priorities may need to be examined. The list of priorities should be time with God, time with family, time with others, and in that order. It is absolutely impossible to go back and start over, so start from where you are today.

I’m sure there are some episodes of 2013 you would enjoy playing over and over again. My wife and I have some movies on VHS and DVD we enjoy watching again and again. Usually it’s those that present a good message about life. These represent those “life replays” that are worth repeating and are worth remembering. Hopefully, 2014 will have more of these positive replays for you and it can if you will take time to prioritize and focus on the essentials.

Reflections:

• Pause, think before you speak and act.
• Replay, the things worth thinking about in Philippians 4:8.
• Delete, speech that is hurtful to others.