To feel safe is to stop living in my head and sink down into my heart and feel liked and accepted … not having to hide anymore and distract myself with books, television, movies, ice cream, shallow conversation … staying in the present moment and not escaping into the past or projecting into the future, alert and attentive to the now …feeling relaxed and not nervous or jittery … no need to impress or dazzle others or draw attention to myself. … Unself-conscious, a new way of being with myself, a new way of being in the world … calm, unafraid, no anxiety about what’s going to happen next …loved and valued… just being together as an end in itself.
~ Brennan Manning
Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you is no trouble to me and is safe for you… Look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh. For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh—though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and may share His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead… Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me His own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained.
~ paul, The Least of The Apostles, in Philippians 3
Oh beloved, it is true. Each of us has a past. And this same past will do everything it knows how to do to haunt us. It calls out to us and wants to pull us back into its grasp. But the thing the past won’t tell you? The past is past.
Oh yes, there are consequences to our actions and thoughts. The things we were can absolutely influence our present. Our sin is not made less by the passage of time. It remains, apart from the sole work of The One who could and did pay for it all.
And this is where the past can be left in the past. It is infinitely forgiven simply for us trusting that this is true. The Way and The Truth and The Life has done it. It is over.
The Fear
The Worry
The Doubt
The Fear
The Memories
The Abuse
The Fear
The Loss
The Sickness
The Fear
The Mistakes
The Wandering
The Fear
The Wishing
The Everything Else that we hoped for and it did not happen,
And… The Fear.
Is drowned in a faith-wrought torrent of His Grace.
And so, there indeed will be an ongoing number of times where the past wants to play itself back to us in our heads and hearts. It is as though there are tapes looping around in our heads. The neural loops want to keep resending their resentment over all that we did wrong and had done wrong to us.
The past will try. But it does not have to succeed.
Can we see it? Cut the tapes. There is no need to lose our memory, but we forget the hold that it pretends that it has on us in the present moment. We learn to stop looking at the waves of our past, and look into the eyes of the Eternal Son of Man instead.
So, are you feeling the past trying to pull you back into its grip? It will do this. And there is no need to pretend that the past did not happen. However, we do need to realize that we have been cut completely free of the need to be fearful of the past. And we especially need to cut the tapes that try to make our present or future something it is not.
Beloved, your now, and your future – in Him – is glorious beyond your ability to imagine. It is an astounding destiny of freedom and hope and life and good and victory. Tonight is your night. Time to believe that the past is over.
