CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
NEGLECT YOUR NEGATIVE PAST
“And Jesus said unto them, no man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:62)
You cannot look forward and backward at the same time. Give it a try and see. It’s also risky to drive a vehicle looking backward. You’ll crash in no time doing that. Also, the steering of our vehicles today are always in front of the vehicles, not at the rear; because the focus of the driver must be forward. Similarly, you cannot reach out for the future holding on to your negative past. You cannot build toward posterity when you allow memories of your past to weigh you down.
God said in Isaiah 43:18-19 (NIV); “forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing…” God instructs us to forget the former things (the past) and focus on the new thing that He’s about to do. That means you cannot grab the new thing holding on to the old thing. You can take lessons from past events but don’t you dwell on the past.
You can choose to be weighed down by your negative past and miss out on your purpose or you can choose to neglect the past and enter into your rest. You cannot have the both at the same time. You cannot possess the past and the future at the same time.
Paul said; “Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal…” (Philippians 3:13-14, NIV). There’s much more to be accomplished as long as you are still alive. But there is a way to accomplish it. Paul said it is by forgetting what’s behind and straining toward what is ahead. You’ve got to force your way out of the past and dive into purpose with great focus.
You might have fumbled in the past, but you don’t have to let the guilt get a hold on you. You were probably abused in the past, but now you must pick up yourself and move on. Maybe things didn’t work out because of the kind of family you were born into; it’s time to redefine your future through an unbroken focus.
Some of the things you called failure in your past, were not actually failure; God calls them ‘stumbling’. “Though they stumble, they will not fall, for the Lord will hold them by the hand” (Psalms 37:24, NLT). That you stumbled doesn’t mean you have fallen. It only means you need to be more focused. When you stumble, you can get up by yourself again and forge ahead.
Also, if you keep celebrating past success to the neglect of the future, your past success becomes a negative influence on your mind and hence, retards your progress. It becomes a negative past. No matter how far you have gone in life, there is still a place called forward. You need to focus on the future more than you do your past accomplishments.
There is always something ahead, so don’t dwell on what’s on ground, start charging toward other goals you haven’t accomplished. Your mistakes and fumbling in the past are now irrelevant. You can write a new script right now. Forgive yourself and start a fresh chapter.
God Is Committed to Your Future
God’s focus is never on your past, He’s always committed to your future, if only you will open up the way He wants. God is determined to make things happen for you if you will not keep dwelling on the past. The Bible said;
“And he that sat upon the throne said; Behold, I make all things new, and he said unto me, write, for these words are true and faithful” (Revelations 21:15).
God’s interest is always the future, not the past. Men are always worried about how their past is going to catch up with them. God’s saying on the other hand “oh I wish this my child can just understand that I’ve erased her past and I’m focused on what she can achieve in the future”.
Psalms 45:10-11 tells us that God always seeks to beautify those who will dare to ignore their negative past and move on. It says in the latter part “…so shall the King greatly desire thy beauty”.
Jesus makes an interesting statement:
“And Jesus said unto him, no man, having put his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the race” (Luke 9:62).
Jesus meant to say you cannot put one hand on the past and reach out for what’s ahead of you successfully. You cannot hold on to yesterday and accomplish anything tomorrow. You might have laid some solid foundations yesterday, but you don’t keep getting depressed by things that didn’t turn out well and expect to go far.
Many people are more concerned about their lost years than they are about the future. Many keep bemoaning the money they have lost in the past, the time they lost, the energy, the people, the enjoyments and so on. You mustn’t fix the lost past first. The past is gone. Fix the present to secure the future. You cannot do anything about yesterday anymore. You can only do something about today in order to secure tomorrow.