Letting Go of the Past

Letting go of the past.... It seems so much easier said than done, but it is MANDATORY if you want to advance pass where you are now. It is a mindset change that needs to be put into action to receive/achieve results. But holding on to the past becomes like "comfort food" you know you shouldn't have it but you don't have the strength to resist it. Here you are waiting on God to move, and He is waiting on you to drop your "baggage" so you can embrace Him with both arms. It's like a tug of war. God is holding you by one arm and your past is holding your other arm. But who will you let win the battle?

I know you have experienced loss, maybe of a relationship or a loved one. Pain of a miscarriage or health diagnosis. The betrayal of a friend, the broken trust of a confidant. The list can go on and on, and I don't want to disregard any of the emotions that accompany these situations or circumstances. But how has holding on to it brought joy or peace into your life? We must let go of fear! Fear that tells us that we just need to accept it. Fear that shames us to face the past over and over again. Of fear that won't allow us to trust God totally and completely.

Think of Lot's wife in Genesis chapter 19. "When the morning dawned, the angels urged Lot to hurry, saying, “Arise, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be consumed in the punishment of the city.” And while he lingered, the men took hold of his hand, his wife’s hand, and the hands of his two daughters, the Lord being merciful to him, and they brought him out and set him outside the city. So it came to pass, when they had brought them outside, that he said, “Escape for your life! Do not look behind you nor stay anywhere in the plain. Escape to the mountains, lest you be destroyed.”... "But his wife looked back behind him, and she became a pillar of salt." (Genesis 19:15-17, 26 NKJV)

What a price to pay for disobedience. The instructions were clear "do no look behind you." You past is just that.... your past. Past means: gone by in time and no longer existing, done, olden, long ago. Holding on to the past will impede your future progress. Take heed to the word of God and do not allow anyone (including yourself) to keep you in bondage of the past but LET IT GO! "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new." (2Corinthians 5:17 NKJV) If God says old things have passed away, then why are you holding onto past hurts, circumstances, pain, emotions, failures, or words as though they are brand new?

Letting go of the past starts with YOU! The price you will pay for holding on is NOT worth it. Take it day by day and lay those things down that have you bound, and when you release yourself from the past... do not look behind you! What God has ahead for you is so much better than what is behind you. Keep Calm and DIVA on!