It is over

Now we look inside, and what we see is that anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. The old life is gone; a new life emerges! Look at it! All this comes from the God who settled the relationship between us and him, and then called us to settle our relationships with each other. God put the world square with himself through the Messiah, giving the world a fresh start by offering forgiveness of sins. God has given us the task of telling everyone what he is doing. We’re Christ’s representatives. God uses us to persuade men and women to drop their differences and enter into God’s work of making things right between them. We’re speaking for Christ himself now: Become friends with God; he’s already a friend with you. (2 Corinthians 5:17)

Are you in 'union' with Christ? If so, you got a fresh start - the past has been erased. Before you roll your eyes on that one, let me assure you I know being totally free of our past it is easier said than done. In the eyes of Jesus, it is a done deal. In our eyes, and more importantly, in our memories, it is a much harder leap of faith to let go of the past. It kind of 'lingers' and holds onto us like some 'blood-sucking' creature from the lagoon. The truth we must rely upon is that the 'relationship' we have with our past is 'settled'. It isn't there to haunt us any longer because God settled any debt owed. We are no longer 'bound' to our past - but we have to convince our minds to let go of what no longer holds us in bondage. 

What does the word 'settled' actually entail? According to my dictionary, it means something is 'fixed or established, unlikely to change'. I have to ask - does holding onto the past allow us to do anything good with our present? It is highly unlikely. All it does is cloud the view we have of our present and keep us from even thinking about the future. When something is 'settled', it is ENDED. The relationship we have with our past has been determined as 'done and over'. If God sees it that way, then perhaps our best tact to take is to ask him to help us see it as he sees it. At first, it will not seem like much changes when we pray this prayer, but as we keep praying it, God begins to help us focus less and less on the past and more and more on the future.

As I went through my divorce, all I could see was the 'stuff' or 'baggage' from that relationship that I didn't really want to see any longer. I had 'bad feelings', and those feelings 'tainted' everything around me. I needed a clean break, but didn't know how to be free of those feelings, much less the sense of failure and lack of hope the end of that relationship left me with. The more I committed it to God, the less I seemed to focus on the things that left me feeling so 'tainted'. It took a good couple of years before I actually began to walk free from those ugly feelings, but in time there was little to no pull to look back at that ugly place. I had allowed God to settle it inside me - to help me break free of the rejection, distrust, and anger. 

The past isn't always the easiest to let go of - the present is always the easiest to embrace. That said, our past is settled - it is a done deal. God took all of it into his court and removed any hold that past can have over us today. The break we need may not be that far away - it might just be we need to ask, keep asking, and then allow God to help us see the past has ENDED and the present is begun. Just sayin!