DON’T LIVE IN THE PAST

“Forget the things that happened in the past. Do not keep on thinking about them. I
am about to do something new. It is beginning to happen even now. Don’t you see it
coming? I am going to make a way for you to go through the desert. I will make
streams of water in the dry and empty land.” ~ Isaiah 43:18-19 (NIrV)

I don’t know about you, but I tend to be pretty nostalgic. It’s easy for me to get caught up in
my memories of the past to where I can miss what’s right in front of me. Worse yet, my
memories aren’t always trustworthy. It seems that over time I tend to forget some of the
unpleasant details and remember mostly the good stuff. I know this is true because I keep a
journal, and I often find that I’ve written about unpleasant aspects of memories that I don’t
consciously recall when idealizing the past.

Others can’t seem to ever forget their past mistakes. And some keep replaying what others
have done to them. Most of us have our eyes on the rearview mirror too much of the time.
God reminds us in His prophesy through Isaiah—a man who lived hundreds of years before
Jesus was born—that we should forget the past. I don’t think that means to literally erase
memories, but rather to stop letting the past own our present and borrow from our future.

God is in the process of doing something new. It may look similar to what He’s done before,
or it might be completely different. If we want to experience it and enjoy all the blessings
He has for us in it, we have to let go of the past. Try it and see if your present isn’t better.

Love ya’ll,
Pastor Larry