Don’t Allow Your Past to Destroy Your Future

Many people allow their hurts, abuse, regret, sin, or disappointments to steal their joy and future. These words are not intended to downplay the difficulties you may have encountered. But we must realize there is absolutely nothing we can do to undo the past.

Too often we allow a never-ending replay loop to visit the problems of the past. At the end of the replay loop, there is no delete button. It is sad that so many people allow the past to mar their future.

All of us have choices of which we regret. “I wish I hadn’t done that!” or “I wish I would have made a better choice there!” There is nothing we can do to change the decision or the action of the past. That door is shut and cannot be opened.

Then there are so many who have suffered abuse for no fault of their own. They experience shame and guilt over something totally out of their control. It is like the enemy leaves an open sore that never seems to heal. These people need our compassion and the healing that only comes from Jesus.

Can we go back and change anything?” The answer is an emphatic, “NO!” Reliving an injury and regretting a bad choice only drives us to a dark place and God wants us to live in the light of His healing and grace. Our only hope is in Jesus who makes all things new.

Unforgiveness is in the midst of all these things also. Continual unforgiveness does nothing to those who hurt us. It only destroys our soul. Someone said, “Unforgiveness is like drinking poison and hoping someone else dies from the poison.” Unforgiveness gone to seed produces bitterness in us.

The Devil loves to torment people. He is called “the accuser of our brethren” (Revelation 12:10 NKJV) for a reason. He treats us like dirt and then convinces us we are nothing but dirt. He enjoys making people miserable in order to rob them of God’s blessings today and tomorrow.

Yesterday’s Door is Shut; Tomorrow’s Door is Open. The past is sealed, today is passing, tomorrow is a new day.

If you have regrets, use yesterday as a classroom to learn a lesson. In other words, quit making the same mistakes over and over again. As has been repeated often, “The definition of stupidity: Doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result.”

Living in deep regret of the past only hampers us from making the best of today and tomorrow. Forgive yourself, ask God to forgive you, and move forward instead of wallowing like a pig in yesterday’s mud. You are not a pig, but God’s handiwork of creation designed in the very likeness of God. The crown of His creation. Be who God created you to be.

If you have been abused in some way, there is freedom in Jesus. The bondages of shame through no fault of your own can be broken. The yoke of bondage can not only be removed, but the yoke through Christ’s deliverance can be ground to powder. If it is pulverized there is no yoke to be put on you.

Think about the good things of the past. Consider the hope of tomorrow. Our flesh leans toward the negative. It is like gossip. Bad news travels further than good news and has more ears to hear when it arrives. Let’s quit gossiping about ourselves in our own head. Capture those harmful thoughts and cast them to the ground. Do not dwell on the negative but look to the future with a positive attitude.

One of the many joys of being a Christian is the forgiveness of our past sins and the resurrection of our new life in Jesus. I love this scripture of promise, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17 NKJV).

We all have visited the past and returned depressed. Through prayer and by God’s grace, the past can be buried, and our new life can be resurrected in Christ. This new life in Jesus is our open door of the present and the offered blessings of tomorrow.

Remember, Jesus said, “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly” (John 10:10 NKJV).

Will you walk through today’s door with Jesus? Slam the door of yesterday, walk through today’s door of grace, and sail into the new hope of tomorrow filled with love, joy, and peace. May God heal all your wounds of spirit, soul, and body.

Yours on the Journey,

Harry L. Whitt