Past Tense part 1
I want to pick up on an idea I kind of touched on in an early Rant. The idea that your experiences CAN define you, but don't HAVE to. Which is why I picked "Past Tense" for the title of this series. If you let it, the past can make you really tense. It can make you miserable. It can keep you trapped. It can be a ball and chain around your ankle that won't let you move forward. Because we define things--especially ourselves--by what has come before. That's what we know. That's what's real to us. So in the case of... relationships, for example, one bad experience can ruin us. We touch the fire, and we get burned, and we don't want to touch it ever again. We can very easily let one bad apple ruin the entire bunch. Because that's the sum total of what we know. And while the grass usually LOOKS greener on the other side, it's very easy to settle. Very easy to think, "No matter how green it might be... I can't have it." Because we never HAVE had it. And that's how our brains work. We slip into this snapshot mentality where we think how it is now is how it's gonna be forever. We think because we never have... we never will. But I constantly find myself amazed by things that I absolutely, positively KNEW were impossible. Until they happened. Which is my verse for today. "And he said, The things which are impossible with men are possible with God" (Luke 18:27). See, we think it's impossible. But for God it's not only possible, it's likely. All of His promises are yes and amen. Which is to say we go through things to GO THROUGH them. To learn from them and grow from them. I'm convinced that we (I'll emphasize it again) GO THROUGH things for one of two reasons. 1. To learn and grow. 2. To have the experiential knowledge to help others through similar situations. That's one of the most powerful connections you can make. "I've been there. I survived. You will too. I'll help you." And that's when our past stops making us tense. It starts making us strong. And not what we think of as strength when we choose to hide from what has hurt us. You don't guard your heart by closing it down. You guard your heart by opening it up. By staying open to love. By knowing and believing that no matter what has happened, you ARE loved. You are LOVE. And that's the experience that MUST define us. The love of the Father filling us to overflowing. Jesus--God in the flesh, love in a body--is our true identity. That's who we really are. History is HIS story. And we find ourselves in His story when we find Him in ours. We find ourselves in Him when we find Him in us. When we stop judging things by appearance and start judging righteous judgment. The past is over. It it finished. You can't do anything to change it. But you don't have to let it hold you back or pull you down. You can use it as a catapult to fling you into your destiny. You can use what has come before to ready yourself for what comes next. You're not defined by it, but you can learn from it!