Leave the Past Behind You!

Yesterday is gone and tomorrow may never get here. This is a cliché many people use but truthfully don’t walk completely in. There are a lot of people who have a great concept of the very real fact that you may never see tomorrow but the problem comes in with yesterday being gone. Too many people have allowed their past to have a hold to them. This is a topic that I am writing on today that I struggled to hear to write about today and is a topic that hits very close to home because I am not exempt. My past and things that have occurred in my past like many other people haunts me to this day. I go through every year and have since I was 13 years old gone through what I have now deemed “My Season”. This “season” is a time where the attacks hit me the hardest and go the longest. It usually ranges from Nov 1^st – Feb 15^th of every year. This attack I go through continually deals with incidents and hurt that has occurred in my past. I found as I began to openly expose it that it is something I am not alone in and actually because of how far I have come it’s something that I can help other people with. The one thing about the past is it is just that it’s past. It’s over and there is no going back to do it again or make it different. Whether it be a death of a loved one or a bad break up or something worse there is nothing you can do about it but let it be in the past. I try daily to live by a motto (and am very good at it save for my season) and that motto is the past is the past leave it there. We must understand that no matter what we have gone through it’s over and can’t hurt you again, it can’t effect you again. Yes it happened, acknowledge it (whether it be you’ve sinned and fallen short [which we all do] or someone has hurt you) and begin the process of being healed from it. The devil loves to use the past to keep you stagnant. He’ll put things in front of you that will remind you of your past or cause people to call you a hypocrite because you are no longer your past. Anything to get you to not continue to pursue after the things of God. However, there is a solution and it is found in Philippians 3:13 &14. Paul says I count not myself to have apprehended but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those which are ahead, I press toward the mark of the prize of the high calling which is in Christ Jesus.

What Paul is saying is first of all I don’t have it all yet nor do I have all the answers (neither do I) but this is one thing I do have. I’ve learned and am learning to forget those things which are behind me. Put them away. Don’t pick them back up and continue in the same ole same ole. They happened and I can’t change that but I won’t let it continually keep me from getting to where I am going. I ran track in high school and one thing my coach kept fussing at me about was not to look back to see where my opponent as coming from. He kept saying run your race. You can’t focus on them because then you lose focus on the race you are running. Everytime you look over your shoulder to see the your opponent (your past) you lose a step. The more steps you lose the easier it is for your opponent to catch you. The same is in the spiritual realm. The more you focus on your past the easier it is for the enemy to have a hold of you. Keep looking at the mark. Paul said I reach for those things ahead of me. My coach said it this way, keep your eyes on the finish line (eye on the prize). Beating your opponent isn’t your goal finishing the race is. If you run your race you can win the race. If you stop looking back and allowing your past to take a hold of you, you can win and conquer your past.

The last thing I will talk about in this text is that Paul said he had to press. It’s not going to be easy to let go of your past. It’s going to be a struggle because the enemy as I said earlier will use all tactics to remind you of your past and keep it in front of your face and in your mind. But you’ve got to press on. When you feel those thoughts creeping up and you start to feel the reaction of the emotion of your past hitting you stop what you are doing, rebuke the enemy in the name of Jesus and take back control of your mind. Press on! Press on! Press on! Your past is over and can’t come back but you can push and move forward. It’s not a getting over it, it’s a getting through it. You move to get through the past to move toward where God has you to be. As always Grow in God’s Grace and Abide in His Love!