|
Failures and disappointments.
Aches and pains from the past that just won’t seem to go away. Most of
us know what it’s like to suffer from them but too few of us know just
what to do about them. So we limp along, hoping somehow they’ll
magically stop hurting.
But it never happens that way. In fact,
the passing of time often leaves us in worse condition—not better.
Because, instead of putting those painful failures behind us, we often
dwell on them until they become more real to us than the promises of
God. We focus on them until we become bogged down in depression, frozen
in our tracks by the fear that if we go on, we’ll only fail again.
I
used to get caught in that trap a lot. Then one day when I was right in
the middle of a bout with depression, the Lord spoke up inside me and
said:
Kenneth, your problem is you’re forming your thoughts
off the past instead of the future. Don’t do that! Unbelief looks at the
past and says, “See, it can’t be done.” But faith looks at the future
and says, “It can be done, and according to the promises of God, it is
done!” Then putting past failures behind it forever, faith steps out and
acts like the victory’s already been won.
If depression has
driven you into a spiritual nose dive, break out of it by getting your
eyes off the past and onto your future—a future that’s been guaranteed
by Christ Jesus through the great and precious promises in His Word.
Forget
about those failures in the past! That’s what God has done (Hebrews
8:12). And if He doesn’t remember them any more, why should you?
The
Bible says God’s mercies are new every morning. So if you’ll take God
at His Word, you can wake up every morning to a brand-new world. You can
live life totally unhindered by the past.
So, do it! Replace
thoughts of yesterday’s mistakes with scriptural promises about your
future. As you do that, hope will start taking the place of depression.
The spiritual aches and pains that have crippled you for so long will
quickly disappear. Instead of looking behind you and saying, “I can’t,”
you’ll begin to look ahead and say, “I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me!”
|
No comments:
Post a Comment