Your Past Is Not Supposed To Be Your Shadow

Recently as I was listening to my favorite life church podcast it made me start thinking about my past and how at times I let it follow me around like a shadow. One of my favorite priest we had here, Father Lim, used to say this all the time, ” Once we have asked for forgiveness of our sins, our sins are cast out into the sea of forgetfulness, it is us that fishes them back out.” I loved when he said this because it was such a good reminder. Why do we fish our past back out? Why do we grant our past control of how we see our future?

There will be times that I am doing just fine and I will be reminded of something I did or said that makes me feel shame and the guilt comes back. My past has shamed me, it has caused me to feel an awful amount of regret, and it has made me feel that there is no way that I can fully be forgiven. It’s the enemy that plants seeds of doubt into our minds to make us question whether or not we have really been fully forgiven. It makes you believe that maybe my sin was so bad there is no way that God has fully forgiven me. The truth is you were forgiven the moment you confessed your sins to God. You don’t have to earn His love through good behavior, it is always there. We cannot embrace the future that God is trying to lay out before us if we let the shadows of our past dull the light in our present.

Jesus replied, ” No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God. – Luke 9:62

There are going to be times where you will be reminded of your sins. I dread the day when I have to explain to my daughters that I chose to have sex before marriage, that I have more than once lied to my parents, and another handful of decisions as a teenager that were not following with the life God calls us to lead. That I chose to try and pursue earthly love more than Godly love which led me to have an eating disorder. I lost my way. I forgot that I was a daughter to the King. I forgot how much I was fully known and fully loved. I have committed other sins throughout my life and will continue to because I am human. Sins remind us how amazing God’s grace truly is. One of my favorite lines from this episode is, ” God uses imperfect people to impact His world.” Every trial you have been through has lead you to where you are. Some of my worst sins have allowed me to help show God’s love more than I ever thought possible. Allow yourself to love from the grace that God showed you.

I pray for you in this New Year that you truly find peace with your past. That you no longer allow those shadows to dull the light of your future. I pray for you that you are reminded that you are fully known and fully loved, and you understand that feeling of knowing that you are fully loved comes from God and Him alone. I pray that you get to the place when you look at your past and, instead of letting it shame you and making you feel guilt, you see God’s love and faithfulness. I pray that you can say my God loves me deeper than I ever knew. His provision is greater than anything I can imagine. I pray that your 2019 is full of less shadows and more light. That your relationship with God becomes more intentional and that you allow yourself to bring more of God’s love into this world.

“Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. – Philippians 3:13-14