Frank Santora

Turn It Around: My Interview on Good Morning Connecticut

It’s a New Year and that means a new direction for our lives. God knows, some of us desperately want that in 2012. Unfortunately though, many people feel stuck in the same old life cycles. They feel like the perverbial hamster on his wheel. So how do you turn that around? Well one sure fire way is to expect forgiveness from God and not punishment.
Religion has conditioned us to expect God to get us. To expect him to strike us down. It’s caused us to envision God as an angry old man sitting on his throne in heaven with a gigantic whip just waiting to strike when we do something wrong. Consequently, many of us never expect good things in our lives becasue we feel like we have to pay forever for the mistakes we’ve made. But that’s not the God of the Bible. He’s much different than the God of religion.
When I was a teenager I had an expensive habit – a girlfirend! But, I didn’t have much money, like most teenagers. One day my mom told me to go up to her dresser drawer and get her something (I don’t even remember what it was). Well, when I opened the drawer, to my happy surprise staring back at me was a stack of 100 dollar bills! Having a girlfriend, and wanting to take her out to nice places, I was suddenly overcome with the temptation to help myself to one of the hundreds. Afterwards I was fully expecting my mother to notice the “shorter” stack and question me about it. Well after about a week, she didn’t. And so I helped myself to another hundred and then another and then another, for months on end. I must have stolen thousands of dollars from my very own mother. Then one summer I went to youth bible camp and had an experience with God. Immediately I felt the Holy Spirit say to me, “confess what you’ve done to your mother.” Oh course I argued with him about this and told him that my mom was Italian and wouldn’t take very kindly to my confession, even perhaps wielding a wooden spoon or broom handle to put the board of education on my seat of understanding. Nevertheless, the Holy Spirit won and I decided to confess my transgressions to my mother, bracing for punishment. When I told her, I’ll never forget what she said and the life lesson she taught me. She said, “Son, I very disappointed you stole from me, but I’m glad you told me and I completely forgive you.” “That’s it,” I said. “No punishement.” “No punishment,” she said. “You are completely forgiven.” The thought crossed my mind, “Can I get another hundred?” No just kidding. But what did sink into my soul was an invaluable life lesson about God – we can expect forgiveness from Him and not punishment! If you need more convincing just read the story of the Prodigal Son in Luke chapter 15 and remember, Our God is the most forgiving person in the Universe. He can offer us forgiveness because He gave us His one and only son, Jesus, who took the punishment we deserve.
So in 2012, don’t get stuck in the rut of expecting to pay for your transgressions the whole year. Receive God’s forgiveness and look forward to His blessing!

With the beginning of each new year, all of us look forward to moving at least certain areas of our lives in a new and better direction. Maybe you feel like your headed down the wrong road, or that things have been spinning out of control, or that you’ve made a mistake that seems too big to recover from. If that’s you then here are a two tips to turn your life around in that new and better direction…

• Look for the good.
We all have a tendency to over exaggerate the negative and under appreciate the positive. But the truth is that our blessings almost always out weigh our negatives. If we are purposeful, we can always find God at work in our lives doing good things, and even turning bad situations around for the good. We just need to dare to look.

• Realize that God is writing your story!
Human nature is to see our lives as chapters. The chapter involving financial challenges, the chapter involving family struggles, or the chapter involving an emotional or physical struggle. But our lives are not just chapters, they are entire stories, and we all know that what makes a great story is a surprise ending – when based on a certain chapter or two we expect a tragic ending, only to discover a triumphant one. Well friends, God is both the author and finisher of our faith and he specializes in writing story book endings! You may not like the chapter of your life you are currently living through, but remember its only a chapter – the end is yet to be written.

Tune in next time as we talk about how we can turn our lives around by:

• Expecting forgiveness from God and not punishment.

• Using S.M.A.R.T. Talk

For a more detailed description of the above, check out my new book turn it around by clicking on the icon above

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Pastor Frank

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