Leaving the Past Behind

I think God is trying to tell me something today. Both of my morning devotional readings talked about leaving the past where it belongs: in the past.

Learning to do that is hard. It is easy to remember the glory days of our youth, the big events that define our lives. When we achieve something big, like winning an award, we want to stay there and soak about the accolades. We want to keep those happy moments in our minds always. Those moments of joy are wonderful, who wouldn't want to keep those feelings always present?!

But, it's also easy to allow the negative events in our lives to overwhelm us. To remember moments of defeat and always wonder what went wrong. To wallow in the mud pits of our lives and never move forward. In some ways this is a lot easier to do than living in our past moments of joy. It seems like there are always more negative events to dwell on, even if they weren't really as negative as we remember them. Why is it that we allow ourselves to let the negative events that happen to us to rule over our lives? That's not what God wants for us. And, it's certainly not what we should want for ourselves.

Another way I tend to live in the past is to recognize the good things, the good people I've encountered in the past only after they are gone. Sometimes I'm so busy working or I'm so distracted by other things, I let the good things - the God things - pass me by. And, when I've moved on or my life situation has changed, I realize what I've truly missed!

The God lesson I'm learning today is to live in the present. This is a lesson I constantly need to learn. I've preached about it. I've taught classes about it. But, it's one of those lessons we need to learn over and over again. Today, I'm focusing on today. Which includes a sewing lesson! Pray for me! :)