Finally Making Peace With The Past

“A Short Prayer”

Dear Lord,

When I have questions or fears, I will turn to You. When I am weak, I will seek your strength. When I am discouraged, Father, I will be mindful of Your love and Your grace. I will ask You for the things I need, Father, and I will trust Your answers, today and forever. ~Amen 🙂

John 14:27

“Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world gives, give I to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

SOME OF LIFE’S greatest roadblocks re not the ones we see through the windshield: they are, instead, the roadblocks that seem to fill the rear-view mirror. Because we are imperfect human beings who lack perfect control over our thoughts, we may allow ourselves to become “stuck” in the past–even though we know better. Instead of focusing our thoughts and energies on the opportunities of today, we may allow painful memories to fill our minds and sap our strength. We simply can’t seem to let go of our pain, so we relive it again and again with predictably unfortunate consequences. Thankfully, God has other plans.

Philippians 3:13-14 instructs us to focus on the future, not the past: “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” (NKJV). Yet for many of us, focusing on the future is difficult indeed. Why? Part of the problem has to do with forgiveness. When we find ourselves focusing too intently on the past, it’s a sure sign that we need to focus, instead, on a more urgent need: the need to forgive. Focusing too intently on the past is, almost without exception, futile. No amount of anger or bitterness can change what happened yesterday. Tears can’t change the past: regrets can’t change it. Our worries won’t change the past, and neither will our complaints. Simply put, the past is, and always will be, the past. FOREVER.

Can you summon both the courage and the wisdom to accept your past and move on with your life? Can you accept the reality that yesterday–and all the yesterdays before it–are gone? And can you entrust all those yesterdays to Our Creator? Hopefully you can.

Once you have made peace with your past, you are free to become fully engaged in the present. And when you become fully engage in the present, you are then free to build a better life nd future for yourself and your loved ones.

If you’ve endured a difficult past, learn from it, don’t live in it. Instead, build your future on a firm foundation of trust and forgiveness: Trust in your Heavenly Father and in forgiveness for all His children, including yourself. Give all your yesterdays to God, and celebrate this day with hope in your heart and praise on your lips. Your Creator intends to use you in wonderful, unexpected ways if you let Him. But firest, God wants you to make peace with your past.

“Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.” –Psalm 51:10 NIV

“Do not remember the past events, pay no attention to the things of old. Look, I am about to do something new; even now it is coming. Do you not see it? Indeed, I will make a way in the wilderness, rivers in the desert.” –Isaiah 43:18 HCSB

“I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” –Philippians 3:13-14 NIV

“And He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” –Revelation 21:54 NASB

“Your old life is dead. Your new life, which is your real life–even though invisible to spectators–is with Christ in God. He is your life.” Colossians 3:3 MSG