"One of our former pastors would always remind people that everyone has a past..."
From the Disney movie Frozen, most everyone with small children has heard the theme song "Let it Go" over and over and over again. It is a catchy tune, and did very well at the last Academy Awards. Within that song lies my favorite line. When one of the main characters, Elsa the Snow Queen, takes off her old crown and throws it to the wind, she sings "the past is in the past!"
So what do we do with our past? A few years ago, a friend asked me if I would ever consider running for public office. My answer was a quick "no". I said I have a number of skeletons in my closet, mostly from youthful missteps. Now truthfully, today I am a pretty good boy. I have had a top secret clearance for years, a spotless criminal record, and only one minor infraction in fifty years of driving. That being said, if someone dug deep enough in my past, I KNOW they would find things I would not be proud of.
People of faith know that God does not want us to be poisoned by our past. When we sin (as we all do) God wants us to ask for forgiveness, atone, and then move on. In fact, one of my favorite verses from the Holy Bible is John 1, verses 8 and 9:
If we say we have no
sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. However, if we confess our
sins, He who is faithful and just, will forgive our sins and cleanse us from
all unrighteousness…
If we screw up, confess it, learn from it, and then it is over. Period. The past will then be in the past. I asked our pastor once how God can forget all the bad things we have done, after we have broken His heart, over and over again. My pastor responded, "God does not forget - He just choses not to remember."
Our job therefore is twofold. First, not be a victim of our past. Learn and grow, and then move on. Next, we need to understand that EVERYONE has a past. For all of us, there are elements in the past that are regrettable and hopefully forgettable. It is not right, nor scriptural, to remind people of the less than honorable parts of their past.
Someone once said, "The past is behind us, the future in not yet here, so we live in the present. And the present has been name as such, since it is just that - a gift." All of us would be better off if we remembered that thought - and then truly let our past be in the past.
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