Past Tense part 3
There's a quote from a movie that goes like this, "The problem isn't the problem. Your attitude about the problem is the problem." And in many ways it's the same with your past. Your past isn't the problem. Your attitude about your past is the problem. Because so often we let our past define us. We let it hold us back and drag us down. We let it stop us from trying new things. We let it stop us from believing. And the reason why it's so easy to let the past do all of this is because the past is the most real thing we know. We actually experienced it. We felt it. We lived it. It happened. So that's our base of knowledge. That's what we compare everything else to. But I also think we romanticize the past. We make it seem like it was better than it was. Or we go in the opposite direction and make it seem like it was worse than it was. We use it as our foundation, but it shakes and shifts like sand. And either way, if we're living in the past or running from the past, we're still trapped by it. Here's a truth for you that should make perfect sense: You can't get past what you can't get past. How could you? So instead of trying to ignore it, or trying to recreate it, what we need to do is let it be what it was... and learn from it. It happened. But it's over. If going through it takes us somewhere better than it wasn't bad. And even if it was good, I believe there's something better. Because if it ended it wasn't the best of all. The best of all is love. And love never fails. Love lasts forever. Now don't get twisted on me: I've loved people in my life who have come and gone. When we say "love never fails" that doesn't mean it does exactly what WE want it to do. It means love does exactly what LOVE wants to do. And what love wants to do is GIVE. It doesn't want to take. The world... and the past... wants to take. Take everything you've got. Chew you up and spit you out. But you have a future. Your story isn't over yet. There's more to come. More... and better. I truly believe that. Because Ephesians 3:20 talks about, "...him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us." There's something inside us. God's heart beating with love in our chests. And that power... the power of love... is able to do more than we could ask OR think. You think you've been through the worst... well, sometimes you have to hit rock bottom before you can climb to the highest heights. And sometimes when you hit rock bottom you get taken up in the wings of an eagle. You stop trying and trying and trying and then what's inside you comes out. Naturally. All by itself. Because it's too big and too good not to. Because you aren't keeping it down by dwelling in the past. Because you know where you are, and you know who you are, and you're dwelling in the present. Dwelling in love.