What are you holding on to today?

April 21, 2014: What are you holding on to today? Please SHARE this new Precious Prodigal Post: http://bit.ly/Qs2WVO

Phil 3:13 "...this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before."

I wrote last week about speaking to the Parents of Prodigals group in Marietta, GA, and how remembering the “way it was” can help us to both avoid making the same mistakes and also to appreciate the growth we’ve experienced. I haven’t changed my mind about that. However, an occasional short (emphasis on short) visit to the past doesn’t mean we should pitch a tent and camp out there.

If you and I spend too much time looking back, we’re throwing away the time we need to spend looking forward. Looking back and lamenting mistakes we have made or brooding about how others have hurt us isn’t productive. More than that, it’s a waste of time and energy that could be better used to build a wonderful future. I’m not saying we shouldn’t learn from the past. We can and we should. However, getting stuck there, reliving the pain and guilt and loss over and over again, and tormenting ourselves with regret over what “might have been” doesn’t help anyone. It only keeps us stuck.

The kind of “forgetting” Paul is talking about in Philippians 3 isn’t wiping the memory from our minds as though we have amnesia. It’s the kind of forgetting that acknowledges it happened, owns the wrong or hurt, and lays it down…lets it go…so we can move forward. We can’t reach forward to the things God has before us until we’re ready to let go of the hurts and regrets of the past. Until we’re ready to let those things go, turn our back on them and walk away, we’re going to continue to be stuck, spinning our wheels and going nowhere.

Speaking to that Parents of Prodigals group brought up a lot of memories for me…none of them good. Before I even realized it, I was back in that prison of remembered pain. The hurts were so long ago that they were covered in dust and cobwebs. So why was I dusting them off and refreshing them as though they happened yesterday? The people who hurt me may have been responsible for the pain back then. But today? Not even close. If I’m miserable about it today, I have no one to blame but myself.

What are you holding on to today? Is it a mistake you made, someone you hurt, someone who hurt you? How many more times do you plan to revisit that thing that hurt you five or 10 or 20 years ago? Maybe it’s time to lay it down, turn your back on it, and let it go. Maybe it’s time to “forget” those things that are behind so you can reach forward to the things God has planned for your future. Because God does have a plan for the wonderful things we can reach for. But reaching for them won’t happen if we’re still holding on to a past we cannot change.

Challenge for Today: Can you, just for today, lay that thing down…whatever it is…and reach toward the wonderful things that are before? Can you let it go?