Turning Toward Tomorrow

I cannot seem to walk in a straight line. Now, you're probably wondering what is wrong with me. It's true, though! My problem is I tend to walk wherever I'm looking, and as a result, I end up running into things a lot. My boyfriend always gets frustrated with me because I constantly run into him when we are walking next to each other. If I'm looking left, I start to drift left. If I'm looking right, I start to drift right. It really is a struggle! 

I believe the same thing can be said about us. Whatever we are focused on, we tend to start down that path. If we are focused on God, it can lead us down an incredible path of growth. However, if we are focused on the past, it can lead us down a path of self-destruction until eventually, we get stuck there. You see, there is only so far back we can go. Yet, our future is endless. Seriously! We have all of eternity to look forward to with God. 

Isaiah 43: 18-19 reads, "Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland." Oftentimes, when we've been delivered from an attack or our sin, we will act as if it is still going on. I remember when I was diagnosed with PTSD. It was very eye-opening, but it also became a diagnosis I found my identity in. I always seemed to have one foot in the past and one in the present, and I was okay with that. The thing about PTSD is that it makes you keep reliving something over and over. With that label, I took it to mean that I had an excuse to live my present as if I were still in my past. Yet, that isn't part of God's will. If it were, Jesus never would have had to die, and we would never get to see the healing and restoring part of God's character. Many of us, while we don't actually have PTSD, are still living in our past. We aren't living with awareness of our deliverance. We aren't living with an awareness that what was once against us is no more, an awareness that the shame we once felt is no longer our identity, or an awareness that what was once broken is on the mend because of God. 

In Genesis 19:1-38, we read about the story of Lot and his family. They were visited by two angels who told them to flee from their home in Sodom because God was going to send imminent destruction to their land. In verse 17, the angel tells Lot, "'Flee for your lives! Don’t look back, and don’t stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away!”' When they got out of the city, the Lord rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah. However, Lot's wife disobeyed the angels and looked back at the city. As a result, she turned into a pillar of salt. You see, she could not let go of her past and what she was leaving behind. Even though God was saving her from the destruction, her focus was still elsewhere. As a result, she was literally stuck there...as salt. When we focus on our past, we tend to remain stuck there too. Our future is so much brighter than our past. We must not go back to what we asked God to deliver us from. We must fix our eyes on the Lord and the future He has laid out for us.

We cannot move forward and consume the past at the same time. We must have a forward focus. When we are focused on what's behind us, rather than what's in front of us, we will always revert to familiar chaos. Oftentimes, we waste so much energy monitoring and hiding behind the very thing that broke us. Our spiritual walk begins to decay every time we make that compromise. We need to stop dwelling on the past. Stop dwelling on what they did or didn't do. Why? Because the Lord has begun a new work in you, and He desires to bring it to completion. Yet, we can't see an overflow in the new when we are stuck in the desert of the past.

We tend to spend so much time dwelling on what happened that we miss what God is actively doing. One of the biggest ways we overlook God's abundance is when we can't get over what's over. Now, I'm certainly not saying that we should just "get over" that traumatic thing that happened to us. What I am saying is that we need to surrender it to the Lord and make an effort every day to live in the present rather than the past. If Jesus spent His time focused on what the people did to Him on the cross, His resurrection wouldn't matter. The truth of the matter is God already resurrected you from your past, so why would you go back to the thing that buried you? Your past is your educator, not your conqueror.

The enemy loves to bring up our past. He loves to try to chain us down to what used to be. Why? Because the enemy doesn't have a future. All he has to go off of is our past sins, shame, and mistakes. But Jesus? Jesus takes the sin and shame of your past and removes it as far as the East is from the West. He loves to make you a new creation and give you a new life. After all, He is the only one to defeat death and the grave, so what makes you think He can't defeat what's buried you? Bringing up our past is a strategic attack from the enemy. So, the next time he reminds you of your past, remind him of his future (Matthew 25:41).

When we dwell on our past, we tend to hold onto blame. Then, that blame will turn into bitterness and that bitterness will become our bondage. We either stay a slave to our past or become a servant to the Lord. Sometimes we get in a mindset that we are god and we can make a big enough mess that God can't clean it up. But we are not God, and nothing we can do can change God's mind about who we are to Him. You can't change your past, but Jesus can by the covering of His blood. His blood has the power to forgive all of our sins and shame. If you come to Christ and fully surrender to Him, Jesus will serve as your advocate before God on the day of judgment.

It does not matter where you've been or what you've done. If God allowed it, it doesn't necessarily mean He wanted it to happen, but it does mean that He knew He could redeem it. The Lord knew He could make you brand new. The Lord knew He could make it look like you never went through it, to begin with. He is using your past to set up your life in a way that when people hear about who you used to be, it doesn't make sense because of who you are now. He is using your life as living proof that God was there in the midst of it. God is able to take our mess and use it for His message. Without our trials, we have no testimony. When we live in our past, we forfeit our future. 

May your roots run deep, and your faith remain strong! As always, Stay Rooted, my friends! <3