37 Days – Healing Old History

Pastor Randy’s devotional:

 “Forget about what’s happened; don’t keep going over old history. Be alert, be present. I’m about to do something brand-new. It’s bursting out! Don’t you see it? There it is! I’m making a road through the desert, rivers in the badlands.” Isaiah 43:18-19

January 9^th Prayer:

All-knowing Father and God, You know the wrongs that I’ve suffered. You know the wounds of my soul and the pain of my heart. You know, O Lord, the memories I rehearse and the justification I seek by replaying the words spoken, the minimizing and dismissiveness of another person against me. I’m forgiving them. But I need Your help to release it and be fully free to see a new day—to see the “brand new” that You assert in Your word. Interrupt my thinking patterns and the “going over old history” as I determine to think on You. And thank You for healing me of past hurts . . . in Jesus’ name!

(Write clearly your wounds and the names of those who have inflicted those wounds upon you. Ask God to help you forgive and release this “history” so that you can grasp the “new” God has for you.)

My thoughts:

We all have a history of hurt feelings, being wronged by others and feeling like we have been stepped on or used.  Sometimes it is people that are very close to us, and sometimes it is very hard to cut that cord and move on.  There comes a time when carrying the burden becomes so daunting and so heavy though that your joy in life, and your ability to actually be happy is impacted.  In many cases the hard decision has to be made, and the cord has to be cut, hopefully this is rare, because it is very painful in and of itself.

The better solution is to forgive them, and release this burden from your backpack (so to speak).  If you are like me, this isn’t easy either.  It’s important to realize though that God is much bigger and much stronger than you and I.  Through His loving presence in your life, He can love you through the pain and the anger that will likely well up inside.  I find it best to sit down and imagine how He feels about the other person. 

We must realize that He loves them unconditionally and wants nothing more than for them to also join into His eternal kingdom.  You may not like them at the moment, and they may have done something so terrible to you that you wish nothing but evil upon them.  Take a step back, realize that we are all sinners in this life.  Some sin is much worse on the surface than other sin, but all sin is forgiven by the blood of Jesus Christ.  The person that has wronged you is a son or daughter of God and can also be forgiven.  It is not our position to choose who can and cannot enter into God’s Kingdom.

Try to find a way to love them enough to forgive them, with an encouraging word that they find the Lord.  Then put it behind you, look to the Lord for strength to forget it and move on.  Let the Lord deal with the salvation of the other person.  Our job is simply to put our own life back together and live happily in the Lord’s blessing.  Make this a priority in 2018.  Cut the relationship off if necessary, but move on with your life following the path He has laid out for you.

Be Blessed,

Rich

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