Isaiah 43:18
“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past”
Recently, I’ve been so consumed with the past. Whether it’s past scenarios or situations, I dwell in a state where I’m immobilised. Mistakes and Regrets have been tag-teaming in a ring against my mind. Sometimes I wish things went differently, other times I rehearse what I would’ve done differently, but almost always I never allow myself to simply move on. Our past is our past, but we let it affect our present which in turn affects our future. However, we serve a God that even Time itself submits to the founder and perfector of our faith (Hebrews 12:2)
Looking more closely at the verse, we see that forgetting the past, isn’t merely a suggestion, but rather something God wants us to do. God recognises that our past can bring certain triggers and emotions: and if you have lived in this corrupted world for a while, a lot of those emotions will be negative. Instead of letting those emotions overwhelm us, God wants us to let go of the burden and weight it has on us.
In a culture where we constantly reminisce and have ‘throwbacks’ we very rarely stay hopeful for the future. It makes sense to look back at where we may have gone wrong, however you can only make things right through movement, and movement doesn’t come through looking back: it comes from looking forward.
It’s very easy to say “forget the past” or talk about all the negative things holding on to the past can do for us, but practically, how can we forget the past? It first starts by recognising what happened. You might be thinking that’s a contradiction: to remember the same thing you're actively trying to forget. But I think in order to let things go, you must first know what you are letting go of. Journalling, conversations and prayer are all ways to process what happened, how it affects you, and how you can move forward.
Gratitude is another way to forget the past. Our minds are very powerful and can shift and change by our own means. If we actively look at what we are grateful for in our lives, we focus more on the present rather than the past.
Our lives are like stories in a book. The whole book represents our whole life and the chapters in the book represent key moments in our life. You can never finish a book by flicking through the previous pages. So why is it when it comes to our life, we think looking at our past will allow our story to progress? God tells us in Jerimiah that he knows the plans for our lives, but we disrupt those plans when we look back at our past.
Our past submits to the creator of time: so, let’s give our past to the only person that knows our future.
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