Whenever I start to think about TIME, my mind gets blown to pieces. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5… I was just living in the present while I typed during those five seconds, but now they’re in the past and I have another five seconds in front of me called the future. Such a simple concept right?
Lately I’ve been convicted about living in the PRESENT. Well isn’t it impossible NOT to? Yes, unfortunately Back to the Future is a fictional movie, and time machines still are not real. However, that doesn’t mean we can’t dwell in the past, or get distracted by hopes of the future.
What is the ultimate problem of not living life to the fullest RIGHT NOW? First, look at the danger of living in the past. In moments when you dwell in the past, you are choosing to remain in a state of that which you cannot change. Whatever parts of your past you find your brain wandering to the most, will dictate the way you feel about yourself, your relationships, and the world around you. Whether the past brings feelings of shame, guilt, worthlessness, stupidity, hurt, anger, or confusion, when you choose to reside there, you are denying yourself the right to fully LIVE now because you are believing in whatever bondage you are allowing yourself to hold onto. The potential God has given us is held back in a locked cage when we keep retracing our steps through how things used to be. Don’t walk backwards when you were designed to walk forward. There’s a reason we naturally walk FORWARD in our everyday lives; yeah walking backwards can be fun for a bit, until you run into everyone around you and miss what’s in front of you.
I always picture pieces of my past in a giant bag behind me where all the weights of memories and scars of hurt are thrown into; each one adding heavy weight into the bag that I must carry behind me as I travel forward. But simple laws of science would tell me that this will decrease my ability to move forward faster and stronger. Also, the whole time I’m moving forward, rather than thinking about where I am heading, my mind is completely consumed by the weight on my back that makes my progression seem impossible. I’m focused far more on my self-induced disability than my God-given capability.
When we choose to live this way, we are completely discounting what Jesus did on the cross. He came to take our bags FOR us. The good and the bad, all of it HE took upon HIS back, so that we wouldn’t have to carry it. Cliché? Yeah maybe. But the funny thing to me about cliché’s is that everybody knows them, but who actually LIVES them?
Psalm 46:10 says “Be still and know that I am God.”
A friend of mine told me that in Hebrew, the word “still” literally translates into “let go”. What a beautiful reminder of our role. We’re not required to HOLD ONTO everything we did, got done to us, or went through, we’re required to LET IT GO.
Talking about your past...Guess where I was today? The BG Alliance! And guess what? It hasn't changed that much. I even went down stairs to the Sunday school room where you decided to throw that boy off of the chair after he sat in your seat. I'm speaking there this coming Sunday. Lots and lots of awesome memories that I want to "keep in my bag". Sometimes our past can propel us to a new future because we choose to embrace the good and throw out the bad. Kind of like sifting a huge pile of sand through a strainer only to find hidden treasure.
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