Let Go of the Past
I ENCOURAGE PEOPLE to let go of their past, but never to run from it. The only way to gain victory over the pain of our past is to let God walk us back through that doorway of pain and into victory. No one can achieve victory for us; we have to work out our own salvation. Paul explained this truth in his letter to the Philippian church, saying:
Therefore, my dear ones . . . work out (cultivate, carry out to the goal, and fully complete) your own salvation with reverence and awe and trembling (self-distrust, with serious caution, tenderness of conscience, watchfulness against temptation, timidly shrinking from whatever might offend God and discredit the name of Christ).
[Not in your own strength] for it is God Who is all the while effectually at work in you [energizing and creating in you the power and desire], both to will and to work for His good pleasure and satisfaction and delight. (Philippians 2:12, 13)
We have to let God take us through things, and let Him work in us so our mess becomes our message. Difficult things that we have endured in our past prepare us for God’s blessings in our future.
Even Jesus had a time of training for His future. Hebrews 5:8-9 says, “Although He was a Son, He learned [active, special] obedience through what He suffered and, [His completed experience] making Him perfectly [equipped], He became the Author and Source of eternal salvation to all those who give heed and obey Him.”
There was a period in the life of Jesus in which we are told nothing about what was happening to Him. During this time we know that He was growing. We too have times of growth that we may not be able to talk about to anyone. It is an intimate time of growth that we must endure. There may be things going on inside of us that we do not understand. But when we finally arrive at the place God wants to bring us, we will see how our past prepared us for what God wanted for us all along.
I like the story about the couple who went into an antique shop one day and found a beautiful teacup sitting on a shelf. They took it off the shelf, so they could look at it more closely, and said, “We really want to buy this gorgeous cup.”
All of the sudden, the teacup began to talk, saying, “I wasn’t always like this. There was a time when I was just a cold, hard, colorless lump of clay. One day my master picked me up and said, ‘I could do something with this.’ Then he started to pat me, and roll me, and change my shape.
“I said, ‘What are you doing? That hurts. I don’t know if I want to look like this! Stop!’ But he said, ‘Not yet.’
“Then he put me on a wheel and began to spin me around and around and around, until I screamed, ‘Let me off, I am getting dizzy!’ ‘Not yet,’ he said.
“Then he shaped me into a cup and put me in a hot oven. I cried, ‘Let me out! It’s hot in here, I am suffocating.’ But he just looked at me through that little glass window and smiled and said, ‘Not yet.’
“When he took me out, I thought his work on me was over, but then he started to paint me. I couldn’t believe what he did next. He put me back into the oven, and I said, ‘You have to believe me, I can’t stand this! Please let me out!’ But he said, ‘Not yet.’
“Finally, he took me out of the oven and set me up on a shelf where I thought he had forgotten me. Then one day he took me off the shelf and held me before a mirror. I couldn’t believe my eyes, I had become a beautiful teacup that everyone wants to buy.”
SUBMIT TO THE POTTER’S HANDS
God has an awesome plan for our lives, and sometimes He starts changing things so fast that we feel dizzy and disoriented, like a lump of clay on a potter’s wheel. But we have to trust that He is working out what is best for us (see Romans 8:28). We need to just go with the flow and let Him make us into something beautiful. Isaiah understood this process when he wrote, “You have hidden Your face from us . . . Yet, O Lord, You are our Father; we are the clay, and You our Potter, and we all are the work of Your hand” (Isaiah 64:7-8).
To live a victorious Christian life, we have to be willing to let go of the past, die to self, forgive those who have hurt us, and let God take us on to the place of promised blessings that He has prepared for us. No one can promise that everything we want to be different in our lives will be changed into what we want it to be. Some things may never change the way we want them to, but God can change us so much that we will not care.
Our comfort has to be in Christ. We need to forget about what others think about us, or what people have done to us in the past. We are to keep our attention on what God wants to do in us, and with us, and for us now. Paul wrote, “For in Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28).
Letting go of the past involves looking to the future in a new way. In Galatians 2:20, Paul offers us a promise that we, who need to let go of past hurts, can now confess: “I have been crucified with Christ [in Him I have shared His crucifixion]; it is no longer I who live, but Christ (the Messiah) lives in me; and the life I now live in the body I live by faith in (by adherence to and reliance on and complete trust in) the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself up for me.”
We need to learn to be satisfied by being in God’s will. The more we focus on who we are in Christ, the less it matters who we were in the past, or even what has happened to us. Paul said, “I count everything as loss compared to the possession of the priceless privilege (the overwhelming preciousness, the surpassing worth, and supreme advantage) of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord and of progressively becoming more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him [of perceiving and recognizing and understanding Him more fully and clearly]” (Philippians 3:8).
He added, “[For my determined purpose is] that I may know Him [that I may progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him, perceiving and recognizing and understanding the wonders of His Person more strongly and more clearly], and that I may in that same way come to know the power outflowing from His resurrection [which it exerts over believers], and that I may so share His sufferings as to be continually transformed [in spirit into His likeness even] to His death, [in the hope] that if possible I may attain to the [spiritual and moral] resurrection [that lifts me] out from among the dead [even while in the body]” (Philippians 3:10-11).
There are deep places to discover in God, and there are deep places in us that only God can fill. We need to understand the power of God’s resurrection, power that can lift us out from among the dead even while we live in the body. Just as the eagle rests its wings on the currents of the air to lift itself above the clouds, Christ will lift us above the storms of our lives.
We may have a goal to move toward perfection, but we will never arrive at that state until Jesus comes again. We are to accept ourselves, love ourselves, and enjoy the journey because we know God is working on our future all of the time.
PRESS ON TO WHAT LIES AHEAD
Paul went on to write:
Not that I have now attained [this ideal], or have already been made perfect, but I press on to lay hold of (grasp) and make my own, that for which Christ Jesus (the Messiah) has laid hold of me and made me His own. I do not consider, brethren, that I have captured and made it my own [yet]; but one thing I do [it is my one aspiration]: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the [supreme and heavenly] prize to which God in Christ Jesus is calling us upward” (Philippians 3:12-14, emphasis mine).
If you have been miserable because of the things that have happened in your past, I encourage you to do as I did and set your focus in a new direction. Determine to be what God wants you to be, to have what God wants you to have, and to receive what Jesus died to give you.
When you are ready for change, say, “I am not going to live in bondage anymore. I am not going to live in a box, comparing myself to others, and trying to be what they say I should be. I cannot do anything about what I have done in the past, but I can do something about my future. I am going to enjoy my life and have what Jesus died for me to have. I am going to let go of the past, and go on pursuing God from this day forth.”
It takes maturity to let go of the past, but a mature Chris-tian receives the fullness of God’s blessings. You can forget old failures, old disappointments, and old relationships that did not work out. Instead, you can discover the new mercies that God is ready to give you every day because of the covenant He made with you when you put your trust in His Son Jesus Christ to save you.
King David searched for relatives of his predecessor King Saul because he wanted to bless them, simply because he had a covenant relationship with Saul’s son Jonathan. In 2 Samuel 9 is the story of how David found Jonathan’s crippled son, Mephibosheth, and brought him into the royal palace where he could take care of him. Mephibosheth did not do anything to deserve this protection and provision, except that he had a relationship to one who had a covenant with David.
This is a picture of why God cares for us. He blesses us because, as believers, we have a relationship with His Son. We do not deserve to be blessed. We do not earn blessings. We may even be crippled emotionally from some incident in our past. But God picks us up and restores us to our rightful place in His kingdom of peace.
God is not waiting for us to do all the right things before He blesses us. In fact, the most anointed prayer we can ever pray is, “Lord, help me.” We cannot reach perfection apart from God. We must be totally dependent on Him to keep His promises in our lives. We are only called to be “believers”; otherwise, we would be called “achievers.”
The disciples asked Jesus, “What are we to do, that we may [habitually] be working the works of God? [What are we to do to carry out what God requires?]” (John 6:28).
Jesus replied, “This is the work (service) that God asks of you: that you believe in the One Whom He has sent [that you cleave to, trust, rely on, and have faith in His Messenger]” (v. 29).
Verses 1-12 of Psalm 51 offers a powerful prayer for us to pray:
HAVE MERCY upon me, O God, according to Your steadfast love; according to the multitude of Your tender mercy and loving-kindness blot out my transgressions.
Wash me thoroughly [and repeatedly] from my iniquity and guilt and cleanse me and make me wholly pure from my sin!
For I am conscious of my transgressions and I acknowledge them; my sin is ever before me.
Against You, You only, have I sinned and done that which is evil in Your sight, so that You are justified in Your sentence and faultless in Your judgment.
Behold, I was brought forth in [a state of] iniquity; my mother was sinful who conceived me [and I too am sinful].
Behold, You desire truth in the inner being; make me therefore to know wisdom in my inmost heart.
Purify me with hyssop, and I shall be clean [ceremonially]; wash me, and I shall [in reality] be whiter than snow.
Make me to hear joy and gladness and be satisfied; let the bones which You have broken rejoice.
Hide Your face from my sins and blot out all my guilt and iniquities.
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right, persevering, and steadfast spirit within me.
Cast me not away from Your presence and take not Your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of Your salvation and uphold me with a willing spirit.
If we simply ask God, He will deliver us from the pain of our past mistakes and create in us a steadfast spirit. But while we do not have to do anything to receive God’s deliverance, we can miss out on blessings if we run away from our problems without letting God bring us through them.
Moses looked for the easy way out of his problems after he had stepped out of God’s timing. He had killed an Egyptian, and there had been a witness to the murder, so he ran into the wilderness to hide. Before God called Moses to go forward to the promised land, He told Moses to go back to Egypt (see Exodus 3:1-10), saying, “Because I have most assuredly seen the abuse and oppression of My people in Egypt and have heard their sighing and groaning, I have come down to rescue them. So, now come! I will send you back to Egypt [as My messenger]” (Acts 7:34).
God was sending Moses back to the people who had “denied (disowned and rejected)” him (Acts 7:35). His own people had mocked him, saying, “Who made you our ruler (referee) and judge?” (see Exodus 2:14). Moses probably was not excited about going back to face his problems in Egypt.
God does not always call us to go back physically to a place we have been. But if, for example, we have a difficult time submitting to a boss with a certain personality, God may call us to continue working with someone who has the same personality until we master the situation in a godly way. God does not want us to be on the run; He wants us to confront our fears and frustrations in order to find peace in Him.
In 1 Kings 19, Elijah was running away when God told him to go back and finish what God had told him to do. When Jonah ran from his problems, he wound up in a whale’s belly. When God delivered him from the whale, He told him to go back to Nineveh and deliver His message to the people there (see Jonah, chapters 1-3).
If we try to solve our own problems without waiting on God, we can make bigger messes. Sarah did this when she convinced her husband Abraham to have a child with her handmaid Hagar rather than waiting for the child promised them by God (see Genesis 16). Hagar eventually ran away because of the way Sarah was treating her, but the Angel of the Lord told her, “Go back to your mistress and [humbly] submit to her control” (v. 9). He promised to bless her obedience by giving her many descendants (see v. 10).
God may be telling you to go back to the place of your frustration and pain, and allow Him to walk you through that doorway and into victorious living. Do not run from His invitation to emotional healing.
WAYS PEOPLE RUN FROM THEIR PROBLEMS
It is common for people to run from their problems, because they do not want to take responsibility for their actions. Most people look for the easy way out, instead of looking for the right choice. Some people physically run away from their problems, going from marriage to marriage, or job to job. Some people mentally run away from their problems through the abuse of drugs and alcohol. But problems do not disappear by avoiding them.
Every choice we make brings results. If we choose never to clean house, eventually everything in it will deteriorate. If we choose not to go to the grocery store, sooner or later we will not have any food to eat. The problem is that we want to make wrong choices and get right results, but that does not work. We always reap what we sow (see Galatians 6:7-8). If we choose to do what is right, we will consequently break the cycle of problems that come against us.
Some people run from problems by making excuses. When God tries to confront them with something, they make an excuse, saying, “Well, I am acting like this because I am tired.” Or, “I act this way because I have been mistreated all my life.” An excuse is a reason stuffed with a lie. The problem with excuses is that as long as we hold on to them, we will not see change.
Jesus told the story of a man who planned a great supper and invited many guests to come (see Luke 14:16-24), but one by one they made excuses for why they could not come. The first one said he was too busy with a piece of land that he had just bought. Another gave the excuse of buying oxen that needed to be examined, and another said he could not come because he had just got married. So the man invited all the poor, disabled, blind, and lame people in the streets and filled his house with people willing to be blessed. Those with excuses never tasted the great supper that had been prepared for them.
Another way people run from problems is by blaming others for everything that is wrong. Adam blamed Eve for eating the forbidden fruit; he even blamed God for giving him the woman, while Eve blamed the serpent for misleading her (see Genesis 3). The Israelites blamed Moses for their misery in the wilderness and begged to go back to their place of bondage in Egypt (see Exodus 14:10-12).
I remember when I tried to blame everybody else for my problems. Everything was Dave’s fault, or the fault of my upbringing. I had to see that I was my only real problem.
Jesus said, “Why do you stare from without at the very small particle that is in your brother’s eye but do not become aware of and consider the beam of timber that is in your own eye?” (Matthew 7:3).
I enjoy a tremendous amount of freedom now, but it came through facing the truth about myself. God pointed out that I had a bad attitude, and my problems would not be solved until I changed. It hurt to change, but I had to face what God had revealed to me.
We will only get free by hearing the truth and doing what we hear God tell us to do. For example, if God tells you that you have a problem with jealousy, you will continue to miss out on blessings until you deal with it. You will have to start rejoicing when good things happen to other people. Whatever it is that holds you in bondage will have to be confronted with the truth before you can move on.
People also run from their problems by staying too busy. We can even get so busy doing church work that we do not take time to hear from God. I was in full-time ministry, helping people solve their problems, when God spoke to me and said, “Joyce you are so busy doing things for Me that you never spend any time with Me.” I had to take an honest look at my time and stop doing many things that were not bearing fruit. Staying busy was helping me avoid issues I needed to deal with.
Paul prayed that we, the Church, would learn to sense what is vital:
And this I pray: that your love may abound yet more and more and extend to its fullest development in knowledge and all keen insight [that your love may display itself in greater depth of acquaintance and more comprehensive discernment],
So that you may surely learn to sense what is vital, and approve and prize what is excellent and of real value [recognizing the highest and the best, and distinguishing the moral differences], and that you may be untainted and pure and unerring and blameless [so that with hearts sincere and certain and unsullied, you may approach] the day of Christ [not stumbling nor causing others to stumble]. (Philippians 1:9,10)
We need to know what to say yes to and what to turn down. I have had to learn how to say no, because I want to make every day count that I have left in this life. Many times what looks good is the enemy of the better thing that is coming.
For example, God told one woman I know that she needed to stop spending so much time helping other people instead of spending time with her own child. We need to know what God wants us to do with our time, and we learn what He wants by spending time with Him in prayer. If hearing from God is difficult for you, I encourage you to read my book titled How to Hear from God. In it I share many ways that God communicates with us, and how it always lines up with His Word and leads us to peace.
Procrastination is another common way to run from problems. We make excuses, blame others, and say we are too busy, and so we put off doing something God has told us to do. We think we will do it later, but later never comes. We “delay or turn a deaf ear,” just as Isaiah warned in chapter 1, verse 23.
Haggai 1:2-7 shows what becomes of those who put off what God has told them to do:
Thus says the Lord of hosts: These people say, The time is not yet come that the Lord’s house should be rebuilt [although Cyrus had ordered it done eighteen years before].
Then came the word of the Lord by Haggai the prophet, saying,
Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses while this house [of the Lord] lies in ruins?
Now therefore thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways and set your mind on what has come to you.
You have sown much, but you have reaped little; you eat, but you do not have enough; you drink, but you do not have your fill; you clothe yourselves, but no one is warm; and he who earns wages has earned them to put them in a bag with holes in it.
Thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways (your previous and present conduct) and how you have fared.
We have to motivate ourselves to do what God tells us to do, when He tells us to do it. Solomon wrote, “He who observes the wind [and waits for all conditions to be favorable] will not sow, and he who regards the clouds will not reap” (Ecclesiastes 11:4).
If you look at your circumstances, you will put off doing what God is telling you to do. It can even seem like the worst time to do whatever God says to do, but there is an anointing on “now,” if God has told you to act.
It is not good to spend our time running from problems. We need to slow down, discern what is vital, accept responsibility for our actions, and if need be simply say, “I was wrong, and I am sorry.” We must not let procrastination rob us of God’s blessings.
If we want to enjoy God’s best for our lives, we must stop making excuses, stop blaming others, and stop being too busy to do what God says to do. He may tell us to give, help, pray, forgive, apologize, or something else. But whatever it may be, we need to learn to be “now people” who hear God and act quickly when He speaks to us.