“Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” – ‭‭Philippians‬ ‭3:13-14‬ ‭KJV‬‬

I have been thinking about my past a lot lately, but not for the reasons or with the feelings you might be thinking of. There was a time where I couldn’t look to my past without shame or regret until I realized that all I’ve been through aka my past has led me to exactly where I am and to be brief, where I am now is comfortable in my skin, is finally at peace and in tune with the Spirit of God that abides within me.

But some of us give the past too much power. We give it the power of both reminding us of our mistakes and the power to determine who we become. For the former, I have found there is no use for it – absolutely nothing good comes of it. One of my favorite scriptures and one I’ve probably mentioned in my editorials before is Romans 8:28 – all things work together for good for those that love the Lord and the called according to our purpose. We look to our past and we regret the mistakes we made in it and while remorse is important, while we need repentance to be forgiven by God and to forgive ourselves, we cannot hold something against ourselves that even God has forgiven. Even though you have made a mistake, which we all have, being remorseful, seeking forgiveness is a sign that you are making an effort and have already changed. The enemy, which can even be our selves sometimes, has us so entrenched and focused on that which we have done wrong that we totally overlook the strides we are making to improve, that we lose sight of the fact that we don’t come to God perfectly, but earnest, vulnerable and broken and that is okay. It is in and by Him that we are made whole – we can’t do it alone. God has a perfect will and even with our free will and the mistakes we have made, it is all working together for our good, so even on our worst day, God is using the very things we are ashamed of in our past to bring us exactly where He needs us to go. We cannot be so focused on who we were that we allow the shame of who we used to be to prevent us from becoming who God created us to be.

Our mistakes are not greater than the plan God has for us and speaking as someone who has made mistakes in my past, I can wholeheartedly discern that without making the mistakes that I did, not only would I have not learned self-love and truly began to understand God’s love and His character, I would not be where I am today.

And for my readers whose resonance with their past is more related to the latter and to the idea that because of where you’ve been and what you have done in the past that God can’t use you or maybe even that you are of worth nothing to anyone, that is a lie from the pit of Hell. We are never too broken that God cannot use us if we so choose to be obedient. There is a great cloud of witnesses we can call upon particularly to dispute this matter, to counteract any belief that your past is a blemish that prevents you from being redeemable or of any use to God. God appeared to Moses through the burning bush after Moses ran away because he murdered an Egyptian and yet, Moses led the Israelites, God’s chosen people to the Promised Land and when Moses died, his eulogist was none other than God Himself. Paul was an avid prosecutor of Christians when God blinded Him on the road to Damascus and it is not only Paul who wrote the two scriptures I referred to earlier but he who wrote half of the New Testament and also he who reminds in Romans 3:23 that, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. From these men and so many others in the Bible, we see that God has a purpose for us all and our past doesn’t make us ineligible for God’s will, but it is the culmination of our testimony if we utilize it properly. Paul’s persecution of Christians is what led him to God, led to him being a missionary and fulfilling Jesus’ Great Commission to go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:18-20). What was a shameful and major part of Paul’s past became essential to his future in that it led him to God and the passion he had for persecuting Christians was then converted into liberating hundreds of thousands of people, to preaching and teaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

My past is a place that I look to reflect upon where God has brought me from, but never do I allow my former self to impact any decision-making on my part today. Who any of us were before we came to Christ and before we died to our flesh has no bearing on who God created to be, on the person we can be when we allow God to work in and through us. 

We all have a past, but Jesus did not die for our sins for us to hold them against ourselves every day, but if you look at your past with any form of cringe, that is a sign of growth, that you are making an earnest attempt to die to your flesh that you might live in the Spirit of God that abides within. Regardless of who you are and what you have done, please understand that your past does not have to be your future, that even on your worst day, God still has a plan and purpose for your life.