Your past.
You are the only one who truly knows your past.
I can try and list a few things that might hit a heartstring, but it won’t address everything. The good, the bad, the ugly. But you know.
Settled down deep in your heart and mind are the hardest times you have ever experienced. And whether you would like to believe it or not…those things are still affecting you.
I want to encourage you today with words you may really need to hear…
Let Your Past Make You Better Not Bitter!
Bitter is easy. Once planted, it grows wildly with little effort. Just a few negative thoughts and BAM! It has taken over your heart.
The problem with bitterness is that it keeps you as a prisoner. It controls you, how you perceive the world and those around you. It denies you the ability to trust and it denies you the opportunity to experience deep intimacy with others. Bitterness keeps you self-focused, instead of love-focused.
Dwelling on your past, holding onto it but not dealing with it, stuffing it down deep inside, that is what leads to bitterness.
I challenge you to let your past make you better not bitter. Let God use your past to make you better. Start by being unveiled before God. Sure He knows what you have been through, but something intimate happens when you offer your side of the story. When you allow Him into those deep places in your heart where you have tucked away your past.
Don’t believe the lie that God can’t handle it or that you are too unholy to share those things with God. His grace is overwhelming in a good way. When you experience it, you will understand. But you must be willing to be unveiled, transparent, open and honest with yourself and with God. If you are angry tell Him, if you are sad tell Him, if you have a hard time explaining how you feel tell Him, and if you don’t even know why you feel the way you do, go ahead and tell Him that too.
Being unveiled is about letting the walls down in your heart. It takes courage and humility. It will set you free!
When you are unveiled, God has an opportunity to speak into that part of your life, that part of your past. He is the only who can heal you and restore you. This is where the better comes from. The better is when God heals you and reveals to you how those past experiences has allowed you the opportunity to know God better. The better is when God sets you free so that you are no longer a prisoner of your past or defined by it. The better is when you are transformed by God’s grace and those past experiences can’t hurt you anymore. The better is when you are able to help others through similar situations and point them toward God, because He has given you His strength to lean on.
You will be better and your life will be better, simply because you allowed God room to help you.
Through prayer, offer yourself to God. Share your side of the story. He is waiting.
