Reference not Residency

Our past has a way of insidiously creating a filter through which we view ourselves and our lives.  Not only does it color how we perceive life and events, but it clearly impacts how we view ourselves.  This perception is perpetuated by many people with good intentions.  A predominant school of thought in many circles is that it is critical to focus on what has happened to us; critical to dissect, analyze and relive our past in order to move forward into our future.  Is this intense focus truly beneficial or does it chain us to our past?  The more I study the Word of God and the more that I work with people, I realize that Jesus did not ever dwell on someone's past.  In fact, he usually told them, "You are forgiven.  Go and sin no more."  Do you hear any psycho-analysis going on there?  I don't.  I just hear a focus on moving forward and not turning back to what has been sinful behavior in the past.

Consider the woman accused of adultery in John 8.  Many had gathered to stone her to death when Jesus arrived on the scene.  He challenged those without sin to be the first to throw a stone.  Eventually all disappeared until it was only the woman and Jesus. John 8:10-11 Then Jesus stood up again and said to her, "Where are your accusers? Didn't even one of them condemn you?"  "No, Lord," she said. And Jesus said, "Neither do I. Go and sin no more."  No analysis here.  It was clear what the accusations were against her, but that was not Jesus' focus.  His focus was movement forward after repentance.  The woman now had a fresh start on her life if she chose to do so.  Coming face to face with her past, with her behavior, Jesus gave her an opportunity to choose to leave it behind and accept the grace permeated gifts of love, forgiveness and walking in a new level of acceptance as a child of God.

Remember the story of the Samaritan woman at the well?  (John 4) Here was a woman who had been married five times and was now living with a man who was not her husband.  There are many of us who have experienced multiple marriages and perhaps have fallen into sinful relationships out of our emptiness.  Jesus did not dwell on any of that with her, and He does not with us.  He simply poured out His living water to her at the well and He does the same thing for us.  Choose from which source you will drink to be refreshed and filled.  Will we decide to continue to drink from contaminated sources that poison us or will we decide to drink from the pure, restoring, refreshing living water?  The Samaritan woman chose the living water.  John 8:15  The woman said to Him, "Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water."  The wisdom of Jesus penetrated her spirit so that she could hear and see that the water she had been drinking all of these years was not satisfying.  She longed to have that which would totally satisfy her.  This living water is the love that we all have been created to desire.  Drink and be satisfied.

I recently read this phrase in Dale Evrist's book The Mighty Hand of God: "The past is a point of reference not a place of residency."  That resonated within my spirit so powerfully.  I know so many people who have allowed their pasts to be a place of residence.   They literally dwell there allowing their past to frame who they are and how they make decisions.  Yes our past does have an impact on who we have been but it does not have to determine who we become.  As children of God, we are to be transformed by the love of God.  Transformation means change.  We cannot stay the same if we are indeed going to become who God created us to be.  We can refer to our pasts as an explanation of decisions we made in the past.  However only if we choose to make our past a place of residence are our decisions for today and the future impacted by it.  This pathway for living however takes a conscious effort to walk away from that past to move into the future.

My past has positioned me to move with grace into a God-directed future.  My past provides the map on which my journey is plotted.  When I begin a trip, I know my beginning point and I know the destination.  If I am making a journey then I want to be departing from one point and headed to a different point.  What sense would it make to even begin a journey if I intended to stay at the departure point, never reaching my destination?  The departure point gives me a frame of reference as to how far I have traveled on my journey.  I can measure the distance I have traveled by knowing this point of reference.  When I look at my life, I can reflect on the amazing distance I have traveled to be where I am.  I also know that I do not want to return there, so I continue to plot my course (through God's direction) to continue to move me away from there and towards my ultimate destination.  

Many of us wasted considerable energy traveling circles around the same mountain without ever gaining height on the mountain.  The peak always looms over head.  Exhausted we plod along, head down and wear a path that our feet have memorized.  The Lord does not call us to that.  Jesus dealt with evil spirits and sin throughout His ministry.  Never once have I read where He sat down with an individual and asked them to review, analyze, ponder their past.  He simply acknowledged where they were and then said, it is over.  Move on forgiven and do not sin again.  There is a time and place to acknowledge your past so that you do not repeat it.  Remember, it takes a conscious choice to not walk backwards into our sinful decisions.  However, once you have acknowledged what you have done, move on and commit to the Lord that you will not revisit it again.  Read the scriptures.  Read King David's story.  Read all of the red lettering in your Bible which records Jesus' own words.  Commit to Him that you acknowledge your past and you choose Him as your future.  Then hear His voice say to you, as I have heard Him say to me, "You are forgiven.  Go and sin no more."