Written by Pastor Jack Wellman“Leave the broken, irreversible past in God’s hands, and step out into the invincible future with Him.”
-Oswald Chambers
Oswald Chambers Invincible Future Quote Commentary
Most of us carry around invisible lists. When the mood strikes, we whip out our lists and go over how someone in the past hurt us, damaged us, or did us harm. Think of these lists as ‘mental peanut butter.’ Just as peanut butter sometimes gets stuck to the roof of your mouth, we can’t seem to full shake off these lists. As we get older, our lists tend to grow. The people who we think harmed us might have moved on or might have changed, but we don’t care. We have our lists and they make us feel… in control. Sad, right? Pathetic? Ridiculous? Well, all of us do this at one level or other. Trying to ‘change’ someone by being mad at them makes as much sense as trying to make it rain by chewing gum. It simply doesn’t make any sense. But we do it anyway. We feel there’s a relationship between how frustrated, angry, bitter, and miserable we feel and the feels of the person who did us wrong. Thankfully, there is a better way. Jesus offers a better way.
Are you a prisoner of your past?
We may feel that our parents didn’t love us enough or we were abused or mistreated but, guess what, that’s the past. Whipping out our list of past hurts isn’t going to do anything for us today-except make us feel miserable, bitter, and unable to embrace and enjoy the full blessings living for today gives us. Jesus takes our list and replaces it with another list. This new list contains blessings when we let Him take over our past. Instead of bitterness, we get hope. Instead of pain, we get restoration. Instead of shame and fear, we get hope, trust, and joy. Swapping our old list with Jesus takes trust. We must trust him and let his love fill us. We must let his love overwhelm us that we become new people.
Swapping our painful past for a joyful present with Jesus
Jesus replaces the dead flowers of our disappointments with fresh, vibrant blooms that reflect the joy, love, beauty, and excitement of living in him and for him. Jesus replaces the long, crumpled list of bitterness, aching for revenge, and painful unresolved hurts with love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, faithfulness, kindness, compassion, self-control. This swap is completely free. It is a free gift. Are you ready to move on? Are you sick and tired of being so sick and tired? Do the list swap today. It won’t cost you anything.
