You Are Next

God is not interested in renovating your past. He stands committed to releasing your future.

Throughout my life, I have been called a number of names—variations of my given name, terms of endearment bestowed by friends and family, and even a few resulting from mispronunciation, misunderstanding, or misadventure.

My buddies in high school usually called me Sammy or Rico (after a character in the 1980s Miami Vice television series). My mother and father always preferred using my nickname—Pichi—especially when wanting to underline the seriousness of their communication. “Pichi, have you finished your homework?” my mom would ask. Or whenever my dad said, “Pichi, we need to talk,” I knew I must have done something wrong.

As an adult I have left most of the silly nicknames behind. My wife and close friends usually call me just Sam, while much of the time these days I am called Pastor Sam due to my vocation. Of course, when someone calls or emails and addresses me as Mr. Rodriguez, I am almost always correct in identifying them as someone who does not know me.

In addition to derivatives of my name I have been called a lot worse too—put-downs and insults having nothing to do with my identity but everything to do with the biased perceptions and personal prejudices of others. Some people even today try to drag me into the past by using certain names to bully, intimidate, and disparage who I am and what I am about. But my name, Samuel, means God has heard, and so I cling to my identity in Christ, knowing that I am not tied to what anyone else calls me.

STUCK IN THE PAST

No matter your name, what you have done, where you live, or the kind of paralysis you may have overcome in your life, other people will try to tie you to your past mistakes, to identify you by your faults, and to label you based on their limited grasp of your true self. They may even temporarily convince you that you can never escape your past and start over in the freedom of the present. Even when they see you walking in front of them, no longer paralyzed by your past, they may still treat you like an invalid, a victim and not a victor.

Some might label you with names that reflect who you once were rather than who God has redeemed you to become. Others might think of you as a liar, a cheater, a gossip, an adulterer, an addict, or a thief. Even when they attempt to make the names and labels more socially acceptable, like workaholic or perfectionist, these monikers remain tied to your past and not your future, and consequently keep you paralyzed in the present.

While society, friends, or strangers may identify you by past issues, God views you in the fullness of your new relationship with Him through His Son, Jesus Christ. Even when you label yourself based on your past feelings, habits, and behaviors, those labels can inhibit your ability to walk by faith. When God looks at you, He sees beyond any names, labels, issues, and struggles of your past.

In fact, He has promised to give you a new name, a secret name known only by you and God, a name that reflects your freedom in Christ. The Bible says, “Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who is victorious, I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give that person a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to the one who receives it” (Rev. 2:17).

While Bible scholars debate the exact meaning of this promise, most seem to agree on the symbolism of the white stone. Apparently in ancient times when they brought someone to trial, the jury delivered their verdict in the form of a black stone for guilty and a white stone for not guilty. Having God give you a new name written on a white stone reflects the way your sins have been forgiven. Christ’s sacrifice on the cross erases your guilt and frees you from the penalty of death. You can now live an earthly life of blessing and abundance and look forward to eternal life with God in heaven. When God looks at you, He sees beyond your past issues and present struggles and focuses on your faith-fueled future.

Sadly, though, many people seem unable to let go of the labels that others have stuck on them. Maybe some do not let go because they grew comfortable with their labels. Even if they know this is not who they are, they would rather accept the role written for them by other people than go off script and be the unique individual God made them to be. Some dwell on past mistakes while others cling to past milestones, living in the glory days of their youth as the star athlete, the pretty cheerleader, the academic achiever, or the most popular.

When I have returned to Pennsylvania and run into former classmates, I am always amazed that some of them have never traveled outside the state. They still try to be the person they used to be—the class clown, the prodigy, the beauty queen, or the bad boy or bad girl. Instead of maturing and growing beyond adolescence, a few individuals seem stuck there, working hard to look the same, sound the same, and be the same.

But clinging to the past inhibits true maturity. It hinders your progress and prevents growth. Like an adult trying to wear the clothes of a child, it no longer fits who you have become.

I am not saying you have to leave your hometown to break free from your past, but sometimes seeing yourself in new environments and stepping outside the roles and labels others use to limit you can work wonders. Yes, it can be incredibly tempting to stay in one spot and think, “I am OK here. I have always known this, so at least it feels familiar. I know everybody, and they know me. I am too scared to risk leaving all that I know to start over, meet new people, or change careers. There might be more for me if I dared to follow God to where He wants to take me. But there might not be. No, I will just stay put.”

Some people know they do not want to keep living in the past, but they feel stuck. They seem unsure how to break free, and they wonder if they even can ever truly leave their past behind. They worry about not fitting in if they move forward, about not having any label at all, or about losing what they already have. They sense God calling them to follow Him into a new future, but anytime their faith gets stretched, they allow their fears to snap them back to the past like some kind of invisible rubber band.

If you find yourself in this group, it means you struggle to trust that God goes with you, His Holy Spirit lives within you, and He will make a way for you. Jesus would never have told the man beside the pool of Bethesda to get up and walk if He did not have the supernatural power to make it happen instantaneously. But you have to trust, to choose to at least try to get on your feet and stand up, even if you cannot feel your legs and you fear falling to the ground yet again.

Jesus did not carry this man. Christ did not hold him up and gently lead him around until the feeling came back into his paralyzed legs. The Lord did not hand this man a cane and tell him it would take a few months of physical therapy.

NO LAUGHING MATTER

When we refuse to let go of our past, we seal our own destruction. Jesus wants to heal us, but instead we keep our eyes on the ground and continue laying down instead of standing up to walk into the new future He has for us. Perhaps we find the best illustration of this tragic choice in the Old Testament when God chose to destroy two cities, Sodom and Gomorrah, where evil ran rampant. These two empires of immorality had become quicksand pits of greed, filth, perversity, and every kind of sin imaginable.

Finally God had enough. But before He destroyed these twin cities of terror, the Lord recognized the few faithful people living there, namely Lot and his family, and sent angels to warn them. God gave them only one simple condition to avoid being consumed by imminent fiery destruction, and one woman chose to ignore this condition.

So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were pledged to marry his daughters. He said, “Hurry and get out of this place, because the LORD is about to destroy the city!” But his sons-in-law thought he was joking.

With the coming of dawn, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Hurry! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away when the city is punished.”

When he hesitated, the men grasped his hand and the hands of his wife and of his two daughters and led them safely out of the city, for the LORD was merciful to them. As soon as they had brought them out, one of them said, “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!”

… Then the LORD rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah—from the LORD out of the heavens. Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, destroying all those living in the cities—and also the vegetation in the land. But Lot’s wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.

—GENESIS 19:14–17, 24–26

We do not know this woman’s name; the Bible simply identifies her as the wife of Lot, the nephew of Abraham. Perhaps we do not know her name because she could not let go of her past and, therefore, she never discovered her identity within the future God wanted to give her. Even before she appears in this scene, I find it striking that Lot’s sons-in-law not only refused to heed his warning—a warning directly from God’s angels—but they thought Lot was joking. Some people refuse to listen to God’s messages or to accept His invitations.

Can you imagine if the man at Bethesda had laughed when Jesus told him to get up and walk? What if he had told the Lord, “You must be joking! Do You not know I am paralyzed?”

While we may not laugh at God or assume that He is joking, we sometimes allow our doubts and disbeliefs to have the same impact. Because we cannot come up with a rational, logical grasp of the miracle God wants to do for us, we dismiss the opportunity and remain fixed on the past. We assume the past provides us with probabilities and known expectations, an understanding of what we can anticipate to come. But God wants to break us free from the past by continually inviting us to stand up and walk into His glorious future.

When God wants to release you from your past, do not consider it a laughing matter.

NO TURNING BACK

Another compelling detail in this story emerges in the repeated expression of God’s mercy and compassion. His angels did not just deliver their message and head back to heaven. No, they stuck around to do everything they could to make sure this family escaped from the fiery destruction raining down around them. Before the passage above, two angels visited Lot at home and delivered their first warning (Gen. 19:12–13).

In fact, the men of Sodom—and the Scripture says all men, both young and old—were so depraved that they surrounded Lot’s house and demanded sex with his two guests (vv. 4–5). Horrified, Lot begged his neighbors and city residents not to violate the safety and hospitality his guests deserved. Lot even went so far as to offer his own virgin daughters to satisfy the mob’s lusts. Just as the angry throng threatened Lot, the angels pulled him back inside and blinded all the men outside so they could not find their way into the house.

I do not know about you, but if I found myself in such a situation, I would take God’s warning very seriously. I would waste no time getting out of there as quickly as possible! But Lot took the time to warn his other family members, which the angels graciously prompted him to do, before dawn. But as the sun’s first light sliced into the horizon that morning, the angels insisted that Lot, his wife, and their two daughters flee without delay.

Curiously enough, their warning must not have registered with Lot because verse 16 says that “when he hesitated,” the angels grabbed his hands and the hands of his family members and led them “safely out of the city.” Maybe the uncertainty of where they would go and how they would get there paralyzed them. Despite all they had seen and experienced, maybe somehow they still resisted leaving their home, the place where they dwelled. As bad as it was, perhaps they preferred the safety of the past over the faith required to find their future.

Before we judge them or wonder how they could think this, we might consider our own moments of hesitation. I heard an old saying: “Better the devil you know than the devil you do not.” In other words, sometimes the terrible conditions you already face seem more manageable than the unknown fears and anxious anguish lurking ahead.

For this reason many people in abusive relationships keep taking the abuse rather than risk leaving and facing life alone. Other people trapped in addictions continue suffering the consequences of their physical deterioration rather than risk getting help and facing the painful roots of their addiction. Still others stay in dead-end jobs and terrible neighborhoods. We cling to the past because fear of the future overwhelms us.

God consistently pursues us, though. He refuses to leave us within the prisons of our past when Jesus has broken the bars and set all prisoners free. In the same way that the angels took Lot and his family by the hand, God extends His hand to us even today. He wants us to leave the past behind and follow Him up beyond the chaos of past mistakes, past struggles, and past pain. The climb will not be easy, but He will go with us. Jesus gives us the power and the strength needed to walk by faith and leave past trauma behind us.

We only have to do our part. Just as the angels instructed Lot and his family, God only asks one simple thing: do not look back! Do not get stuck in the past. Do not turn your eyes on where you have been because when you do, you cannot see where God wants to take you.

Have you ever tried to drive forward while looking only in the rearview mirror or at the video screen that comes on when you put your car in reverse? While it may not be impossible, two things happen as a result. First, you cannot go the normal speed, which causes considerable delay. Second, you will crash. If you do not watch the road in front of you while driving, then sooner or later you will hit another vehicle, a pedestrian, a telephone pole, a concrete barrier, or even a building.

Living your life in the past amounts to the same thing. Someone once said that the definition of insanity is making the same mistake over and over again while expecting a different result. When you live in the past, you get stuck in a groove, like an old LP record player with a needle stuck, going around and around on the scratched vinyl.

THE LONGER YOU LINGER

Theologians, scholars, archaeologists, and Bible readers have debated for centuries the reason Lot’s wife looked back. No one actually knows, however, because she turned into a block of salt before anyone could ask her.

I believe she just could not let go of her past. Sodom contained her home and all she knew. As terrible, wicked, and depraved as we find it, she did not have to worry about being surprised there by unfamiliar faces and unexpected events. So in direct violation of God’s command not to look back, Lot’s wife turned her head and lost her humanity. As a result, instead of knowing her by her name, we know her story as a cautionary tale so important that Jesus Himself later referenced it.

It was the same in the days of Lot. People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. But the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all.

It will be just like this on the day the Son of Man is revealed. On that day no one who is on the housetop, with possessions inside, should go down to get them. Likewise, no one in the field should go back for anything. Remember Lot’s wife! Whoever tries to keep their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life will preserve it.

—LUKE 17:28–33

Lot’s wife became a pillar to her past instead of finding the fortress of God’s future. Jesus told us we have no time to go back and recover items in the face of an imminent divine encounter with the living God. Like going back inside a burning house to save clothes, furniture, or jewelry, you risk your life by retreating into reverse. If you flew on a plane that made an emergency landing on the water, you would not be worried about your carry-on luggage, purse, or laptop! You would be focused on preserving your life in the face of such immediate danger.

Nonetheless, we all have moments when, like Lot and his family, we hesitate when we know God calls us to move on from the past. What person or thing in your life tempts you to pause in the midst of God’s invitation to move forward? It might be your insecurity preventing you from applying for that job you know God wants you to have. It might be your unwillingness to start a family with your spouse even though you know the Lord has revealed the time has come. Maybe you have heard God’s call to start a new ministry or volunteer in your community, but you continue to stay “too busy.” Perhaps you need to confront an addiction in your own life or that of someone you love, but past failures impede your initiative.

Lot’s wife reminds us to follow God’s guidance to our future instead of looking over our shoulder at our past. God directs us to focus our eyes on Him, trusting that He will guide our steps as we climb the mountain above the valley of our victim-hood. Lot’s wife could not stop clinging to where she had been, which resulted in her complete devastation.

It reminds me of the way I recycle boxes to mail packages to our kids. I will grab an empty box from the garage, pack whatever we plan to send, and seal it up. But then comes the most important part: I have to place a new address on the old box—otherwise it will go to its past destination, not where I now want it to go now!

You have been released from your past by the power of the blood of Jesus Christ.

God does not want to erase your past, but He does want to transform it. In His Word, God tells us, “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” (Isa. 43:19). My friend, you need to see your past as a barren, desolate place of ashes and salt blocks. But if you allow God to heal your paralysis, that wasteland can start to bloom and flourish with blessing!

MOVING UP THE MOUNTAIN

When I visited Israel, I heard about a centuries-old salt formation near the Dead Sea at Mount Sodom. While no one knows if this natural edifice started out as Lot’s wife, it certainly serves as a reminder of her fate. I find it incredibly sad to know that instead of a shrine commemorating her obedience and faithfulness, only a dry, dusty rock formation of sodium chloride remains. Instead of moving up the mountain, Lot’s wife became a monument to lost momentum.

Consider how differently her story might have ended. For example, we see a similar kind of stubborn resistance to God’s leading in the case of Jonah. Instructed by God to go to the city of Nineveh and warn its residents of their imminent destruction unless they repented, Jonah ran away. He tried to go the opposite direction and escape the place where God needed him to serve—and consequently ended up in the belly of a fish! But Jonah eventually repented and allowed God to use him to go to Nineveh and do what God needed him to do. Jonah surrendered his shackles to the past in order to fulfill the purpose for which God made him.

Similarly, we see the way many of those included in the faith hall of fame in Hebrews chapter 11 made the same choice to leave their past behind. Instead of looking back in destruction, they chose to walk by faith. Scripture says, “Faith shows the reality of what we hope for; it is the evidence of things we cannot see” (Heb. 11:1, NLT). And the pioneers of faith included here moved beyond the paralysis of their past to procure the promise of God’s power. Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, and on and on—each individual chose to move forward instead of backward.

If you want to experience the fullness of God’s healing in the midst of those paralyzed areas of your life, you must follow the Lord. You must heed His voice and obey His commands. You must leave the place you used to live behind you. You must be willing to travel light and follow the sound of God’s voice.

And leaving your old life for the place God wants to take you involves so much more than geography. While He very well might want you to move across town, out of state, or to the other side of the world, God often wants to see movement in your heart. He wants you to stop carrying around baggage from the past that serves no purpose in your present and only slows you down in reaching your future.

Can you relate? How much baggage do you carry with you from the past on a daily basis? Maybe you have accumulated it from the arguments, conflicts, and grudges in your marriage, from the painful disappointments you have experienced when your spouse has let you down. But what if you could forgive your spouse the way God forgives you? What if you let go of your past expectations and old grudges so that the Lord can lead you into new heights of forgiveness, love, and grace?

Maybe you have been settling for less than you know God has for you in your career. You watch others finish their degrees, get promoted, and enjoy doing what God made them to do, but you do nothing about moving your own dreams forward. What if you let go of old excuses and past limitations? What if you followed God’s call to step out and begin doing what He created you to do?

Maybe you want to be a better parent to your kids, but you will not forgive yourself for past failures. Perhaps you need to ask forgiveness from friends you have wounded with your words so that He can take your relationships to a deeper, God-honoring place. Or maybe you need new friends, ones who will hold your hand as the angels did with Lot and guide you toward the Lord, instead of old friends, or people claiming to be your friends, who keep you trapped in the past.

We all have areas of our lives where we find safety by dwelling in the past. We may have invited God into most areas of our lives but not all areas. And in those secret areas we remain a prisoner to the past, unable to move forward and increasingly unwilling to try.

Am I talking to you? Does your abuse keep you paralyzed by the fear that you might feel that powerless again? Does your addiction, even when in recovery, keep you paralyzed with fear that you will slip back into it? Does anxiety keep you stuck in place because, after everything you have been through, after everything you have lost—jobs, relationships, homes, and money—you wonder when the next crisis will happen or the next catastrophe will crash down on you? Does your status, that veneer of success, accomplishment, and material success you have worked for all your life, keep you tied up in knots as you strive to stay afloat?

It will be hard, but God never leaves you, and He will strengthen you. He will send His angels to guard you, and He will guide you out of destruction and into new life. There will be growing pains. You will struggle and stumble sometimes. You will grumble like the people of Israel did after God rescued them from slavery in Egypt, complaining that life seemed better back in the past compared with the discomfort of the present. Struggling to glimpse the Promised Land, they wanted to settle for less.

The man beside the pool of Bethesda had been paralyzed for thirty-eight years. Why should he ever expect to walk again? Why should he dare hope for a miracle? Why should he not look back and resign himself to remaining flat on the ground for the rest of his life?

I cannot urge you strongly enough: do whatever you need to do to break the chains of your past and all the labels still clinging to you. If you are serious about growing in your faith, then hesitate no longer. Stop looking back! Quit pretending to look ahead while your neck stiffens from staring behind you!

Take God’s hand and let Him lead you beyond where you have been. Let Him take you to a summit you have never imagined in your wildest dreams. You can get there, but only if you trust Him.

As I write this, I feel led to declare some things over you before you turn the page to the next chapter. I believe God will release you from your past, and I invite you to join me in declaring these affirmations over yourself.