Put the Past to Rest - Martin Wiles

Anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! 2 Corinthians 5:17 NLT

She ran from her past, but she couldn’t put the past to rest. 

Frances and her sister lived with an abusive father. Their mother died when they were both very young. Their father molested them sexually and drank continuously. Finally, child welfare intervened and placed them with an aunt.

Frances’ restless spirit wouldn’t rest. She joined the hippie movement and all the accompanying activities when she was old enough. She drank to excess, experimented with all types of hallucinogenic drugs, and traveled the country trying to find herself. Occasionally, she showed up to visit her old childhood sweetheart, who still loved her dearly. He wanted to marry her, but she wouldn’t commit. She didn’t know it, but she was still running from her past, trying to make it disappear through unhealthy relationships and habits. 

One day, Frances decided to put her restless spirit to bed. She called up her childhood sweetheart and proposed to him. They married, but there wasn’t any happily ever after—just happy. Drugs and numerous sexual relationships had presented her with a sexually transmitted disease for which there was no cure. She died shortly after taking her vows. 

The apostle Paul gave the formula for putting our pasts to rest. It doesn’t happen through free sex, addictive substances, financial security, or through the hundreds of other ways we might try. We lay our past to rest through a relationship with Christ. Frances’ childhood sweetheart knew that, but he could never convince her until it was too late. 

Knowing Christ through faith doesn’t erase our past, but He gives us a different perspective. The baggage of past mistakes—self-inflicted or not--will always follow us, but it doesn’t have to haunt us. Christ forgives our past, present, and future mistakes and sins immediately when we ask. 

Who we are in Christ presently isn’t who we once were. Others may label us addicts, abusers, gamblers, or criminals. Christ labels us forgiven children. We may remember how terrible our past was, but Christ forgets it and gives us the ability to tell it goodnight. 

If you’re in Christ, put your past to rest so that you can get on with the present and future. 

Father, thank you for forgiving our past and giving us a bright future. 

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Wrestling with the Past - Martin Wiles

This left Jacob all alone in the camp, and a man came and wrestled with him until dawn. Genesis 32:24 NLT

She often found herself wrestling with the past.

Some days, she felt she won; on others, she wasn’t sure. Beth was the oldest of three siblings. They grew up in a loving home, but one thing scarred her memory: the words “I love you.”

Beth could only remember her father speaking the words when she was a young girl. Somewhere along the way, he stopped telling her. But she could never remember hearing those words from her mother. Her sisters confessed they hadn’t either. Their home had a loving atmosphere, but it would have been nice to hear love and see it in action.

As adults, the siblings psychoanalyzed their parents. Although both parents grew up in loving homes, neither experienced homes where love was spoken. Beth decided before she married and had children, she would say the words she had rarely heard. She was tired of wrestling with her past.

Jacob wrestled with his past, too. He had stolen his older brother’s birthright, then tricked his father and stole his brother’s final blessing. His brother hated him and swore to kill him. He ran. Many years later—while returning to face his brother—he wrestled with God over his past mistakes.

We all have things in our past that we wrestle with. Ruminating about the misery of our mistakes or the foul atmospheres we endured does nothing for our present or future. Only as we think about what we can do differently—or avoid altogether—are our present and future affected. Beth decided she wouldn’t be a prisoner of her past. When she married and had children, she often said, “I love you.” Jacob wouldn’t be a prisoner either—even if it were painful.

Our past can haunt or help us. The choice is ours. We are who we are because of our history, but we can also change who we are because of it. There’s much we can learn from our past—positive and negative. The past is set in stone, but our present and future are pliable. With God’s guidance, we can enhance them both. A part of us is what we were, but most is what we choose to become.

Are you winning when you wrestle with your past?

Father, help me use my past to my advantage rather than allow it to destroy me.

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