Rear View Mirror Addictions

If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love. Love never gives up. Love cares more for others than for self. Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have. Love doesn’t strut, Doesn’t have a swelled head, Doesn’t force itself on others, Isn’t always “me first,” Doesn’t fly off the handle, Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others, Doesn’t revel when others grovel, Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth, Puts up with anything, Trusts God always, Always looks for the best, Never looks back, But keeps going to the end.

Ever just wish you could get rid of your past like the seeds of a dandelion?  Do you find yourself obsessed with looking back at the past constantly with regrets?  How do we come to this place where we find peace…constant peace?  How can there even be such a thing as peace when we have made so many wrong turns and decisions?  Sometimes we just shake our heads in disbelief that we could be so stupid about things yet we show no desire to make any changes for the good.  We are stuck in an addiction of looking in that rear view mirror and have no answers as to how to stop the staring.

How are we defined as a person?  Do new people meeting us judge us for our past?  NO, of course not, they don’t even know us, so why do we even bring the subject up?  When we come to the realization that Jesus is the answer to every single problem we encounter, we can begin to deal with our past and see it for what it is…the past.  The dictionary describes the past as :

PAST (adjective) 1.gone by or elapsed in time: It was a bad time, but it’s all past now.

 

Gone. Do you see it?  It is gone, finished..can’t go back and change a thing, so why are we staring at it like we could do something different?  I know for me, letting go of the past was not an easy thing to do, in fact it took me three years of Jesus time to get through my detox from the past.  I spent several days of my life blaming myself for all of the disaster that had occurred in my life time.  Bad choices.  Mistake judgments.  Wrong answers.  I felt like I was the reason my husband was the way he was.  I thought I caused him to turn to drugs and alcohol to ease his pains and agony with life.  I felt I was the reason I had no true love in my life.  All lies of the enemy.

 

So what is the solution?  Jesus.  Take your past and pretend it’s on the end of a dandelion stem and blow!  Blow all the lies away.  Scatter the past in a million directions and begin to live life to it’s fullest.  Choose to stop staring at the rear view mirror as if things are going to change.  Learn from the past but stop taking it with you. Choose today not to be addicted to your past.  Remember, it’s not going to change.  Choose today to follow after Jesus and be at peace knowing you have walked through fire and survived!