Don’t Let What’s Behind You Ruin What’s Right in Front of You

We all have a past.

Making peace with the past is essential when we walk with Christ.

Some of us made worse mistakes than others, but the beautiful thing about our God is that He forgets our sins and remembers them no more.

When I was a boy, I often went to church and loved Sunday school lessons. My mother always taught me the importance of prayer and believing in God, and to this day, she tells me I’m in her prayers. My father wasn’t the best father, but we have peace today, at least putting our hurts aside and realizing we were both wrong in some ways.

It’s important to rectify what needs to be rectified and forgive the past.

Moving on from those easy-to-entangle snares helps us.

Growth hones us into better men and women.

I see so many believers stuck in their past like the rest of the world often experiences.

We’re all capable of sin, but Christ loved us enough to die in our place and offer us a beautiful new beginning.

It’s up to us to accept that new beginning and set our sights on the future.

Philippians 3:13-14 “Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

Isaiah 43:18 “Do not remember the former things, Nor consider the things of old.”

These verses aren’t telling us to never use the past, but to press forward. Yes, context is everything, but the principle in both verses is to move forward.

That’s the direction time moves in.

What’s already occurred has already been.

To wallow in despair and have a victim mentality about the past doesn’t suit a believer.

That’s not to say your pain isn’t valuable to God, or to someone close to you that you might confide in.

But if you grew up with an abusive father, didn’t get that promotion or open door, lost someone you thought was the love of your life, or even something as mundane as making a silly mistake like writing a message to someone and sending it where the wrong eyes could see it instead of the correct recipient—which would be ‌embarrassing depending on what it was—there is hope.

We don’t have to live stuck in the past. It’s there to enlighten us about what not to do, what mistakes never to repeat, and to help us look fondly on ‌memories and amazing experiences.

It’s the negativity you don’t want to dwell on.

Remaining negative is akin to drinking yourself to death. You’re poisoning the body with a potent chemistry that isn’t meant to be taken in such a manner. All it does is hurt you.

If negativity and dwelling on the past are like alcohol poisoning, then what you need to nourish yourself is pure and living water.

John 4:10 Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”

Good memories are refreshing to the soul. They help us remember God comes through for us, answers our prayers, and that friends and family lift our spirits.

There’s nothing wrong with treasuring memories.

There is something wrong with only seeing the bad side of things.

That’s the beauty of grace. God’s grace and mercy allow us to pull through.

God gave us a gift of grace on our behalf.

He gives us the beautiful sky to look upon, free without payment.

He gives us the ability to move forward, which costs us nothing but growth.

You can’t hold on to pain, malice, and grudges forever.

People make mistakes.

We can use other peoples’ mistakes to enrich our own choices, choosing to do things correctly for the sake of loving our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, and showing the unbelievers that our God is a God of love.

We need to press on to better things, not weighty chains that keep us shackled to a time long gone.

Moving forward teaches us to develop from a chrysalis to a gorgeous butterfly ready to take flight. They can’t fly as a caterpillar. Butterflies fly because they generate enough lift and aren’t weighed down by anything. They’ve transformed.

If you’re weighed down by the past, staying broken when you don’t have to be, you can’t fly.

On the other side of the issue is the idea of relishing our “glory days.” Think of someone who believes in peaking in high school, who’s always talking about the ‌old days instead of making better days in the future.

In the Bible, the latter years of a person’s life are often their best years.

The best is yet to come, not behind you.

It’s okay to hold memories dear. That’s one reason we have memories to begin with.

But reliving your 20s—whether good or bad—when your 30s and beyond will be your best years isn’t healthy.

Yahweh wants His children to grow and mature, becoming the people they are supposed to be with fervent desire.

He doesn’t want us stuck in Egypt when Canaan is calling.

He doesn’t want us to eat the meals of bondage when there’s a better banquet coming.

With Passover coming up, it’s a good idea to let go of our personal Egypt.

God performed mighty miracles with a mighty hand to free His people from slavery. So they could freely eat the fruits of their labors, not desire pittance from slave masters.

The past is an awful slave master, only interested in oppression.

But we as Christians are not to be held back by what hurt us, or might hurt us, if we do something again.

It’s one thing to hold on to those hurts, but the fear of being wounded again is even worse.

That’s your past, keeping you behind bars.

There is wisdom in care, but there is a hindrance in placing too much emphasis on:

“What if I get hurt again?”

“What if I’m not enough for this person?”

“What if I make that mistake again?”

“Am I making the right choice?”

Have confidence in your ability to learn and overcome.

You’re a better person today than you were yesterday, because you’ve learned to let go and become a better you.

And you know what?
Future ______ is waiting, too.

The future version of yourself is waiting for you to take those risks, to make those hard choices, and ‌frankly, to get there.

How can you become the future you if the present you is stuck on the past you?

Makes little sense, doesn’t it?

Press on, because on the day of judgment we will all have to recount our actions to the One who gave us the gift of time.

God made time to move forward. We don’t get to do things over.

But it’s never too late to rewrite your story, because the pen is in your hands.

Don’t like what you’re reading?
Then change it.

Don’t let yesterday keep you too heavy to fly up to the heights you need to reach.

Burst those chains, grow your wings, and soar to where God wants you to be, because you will not reach that point looking toward the ground, defeated.

Yesterday is gone, but the present is here.

The future? It’s brightly awaiting the time that you illuminate yourself enough to see it.

You can’t have light without darkness, but it’s easier to see in the light, isn’t it?