Leave the Past Behind

Are you a runner? If so, running a mile is not such a difficult thing. Even if you were only able to walk... one mile is not an impossibility.

But imagine if you were on that mile journey and you paused to put a heavy backpack on. It was filled with broken pieces of bricks and rocks... and some metal joint and pipe pieces.

It would be quite difficult to run or walk that mile with such a heavy backpack on... but it is similar to what Marines and some other members of the armed forces do in training.

But now, let us take some hooks and wire and hang a half-dozen cast iron frying pans to the back of the backpack.

This would make the mile a bit more difficult. The added weight would drag you down. Also, the awkward motion of the swinging pans would compromise your center of gravity. Also, as the pans swing and your legs move, they would begin to bang painfully into your legs. The pain would hinder your progress.

But you are barely a few steps into your mile and now you have added a 25 pound sack of beans carried across your shoulders. The weight of the beans makes you lean forward to maintain your center of gravity. This places more stress on your leg muscles and makes it even more difficult for you to run or to move forward.

You may even collapse under the weight of it all.

Spiritually speaking, that is what happens when we allow our past to occupy and consume us.

The Bible tells us to cast aside sins and weights that would hinder us from running the race of life.

THEREFORE THEN, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses [who have borne testimony to the Truth], let us strip off and throw aside every encumbrance (unnecessary weight) and that sin which so readily (deftly and cleverly) clings to and entangles us, and let us run with patient endurance and steady and active persistence the appointed course of the race that is set before us,
-- Hebrews 12:1

I once had a dream where I was in a labyrinthine building. In each room, I saw disturbing images of some relatives who had hurt me as a child. It appeared that some were dead and laying in state, others were alive.

I reached a room where a mental patient was frantically reciting dates as if his mind was gone. I sat across from him and spoke PEACE to him in the Name of the Lord. He stopped, calmed down, and smiled.

I awakened confused. That seemed a strange, yet vivid dream.

Later, the Lord revealed that this was symbolic of my being bound by my past... and that I could only have peace by forgiving things done in the past, forgetting those things that I can do nothing about, and looking forward for those GREATER BLESSINGS that are in Christ Jesus.

Forget those things that are behind...

Launch ahead to the things that are before...

And move into the sweet communion of the Holy Spirit and enjoy that peace that passes all understanding.

PEACE BE UNTO YOU RIGHT NOW IN THE NAME OF JESUS