The Road

The Road

"Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I  do,  forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." Philippians 3:12-14 NKJV

Sometimes people are privy to knowledge of things in our past, things which we have worked hard to overcome and moved beyond. Yet, for whatever reason, those privy to this information like to bring it up and discuss it. They aren't aware of the pain rehashing those times brings us, the darkness that looms by remembering such events, the dreaded terror of reliving things that seem like another lifetime ago. They aren't aware of how far we've come since those things, since that nightmare we lived so long ago, since that time which could have claimed our lives at any moment and sent us straight to hell. They aren't aware of the road to recovery from such a past and what a struggle it was to overcome and move past those things, to make the decision to not let it have rule over you any longer, the uphill battle to become a new man by putting that life far from you. But here you are, a new person, freed from the bondage of the horror you once lived; and here someone brings to your remembrance a time, events, and circumstances which you struggle daily to keep from your mind. They don't pick up on the reasons why you avoid certain events, environments, and activities. They don't know what brought about those dark times in your past, kept them going, or what you've gone through to escape it all; and they don't deserve or have the right to know most of the time, because it wouldn't do any good to go through all that. It's a struggle, but we fight the urge to lash out at those who cause us to remember things we'd rather forget; we fight hard to bring our thoughts back to what's good in our lives and the reason we carry on now; we fight hard to have an attitude of gratefulness that we no longer live that life they've thought a good idea to bring up. We work hard, after the moment has passed, to not dwell on the memories they've brought to the forefront of our minds. We work even harder to remember the tools we used to recover from the sin-sickness that we so diligently strove to overcome. We tell ourselves, "Remember your training, remember the good, thank God for your life, don't waste time beating yourself up for things you've long ago put away from you, you're not that person anymore, thank God for how far you've come, don't do anything to put you back on that destructive path. Thank God for the years you've gained by turning from the sin, not the years you lost by rejecting Him. Thank God for all the lessons you've learned since that time and because of His grace in allowing you to live through it. Thank God for preserving your life through that time and put your energies into serving Him; being brought under the power of those sinful times will only derail you. Put those memories away, they have no purpose here today, they will only bring you down. Pray! Pray harder!"

So many lessons can be learned from such times as these.

Any number of things against our will may happen to us in our lifetime. Some things that happen to us can play a major role in influencing the decisions we make throughout our lives. These things may be the impetus for many sins to follow and the root cause of many issues to come in our lives. In recovery these things are also known as triggers. We cannot control what others do to us, that's just a fact of life; however, and here's the hopeful part, we can and do control how we respond to such things and times. We control our actions. When we allow what happened to us in the past (or present), whether done by some other person or ourselves, to have rule over us and cause the fruit of that event to produce more sin, then we are continually giving that person (or event) power over our lives. As long as we subject ourselves to the progression of the sin done to us (or by us), we give satan power over our lives and rule it he will, long after the fact.

Here's the thing, you and I both know that satan doesn't fight fair. He'll use anything that happened to us, even tragedies, to bring us down and to enslave us to more sin. He'll use things that are painful for us to recall or deal with to bring about more sin in our lives. Satan doesn't care how much pain we go through, only that the pain we experience leads to more pain which leads us to engage in sin. He doesn't care if we wreck our lives, or the lives of others, in fact he would like that to be so. See, we become his servants (useful idiots) when we choose to sin and when we choose to allow events in our lives to have rule over us and our decisions.

We can escape these ways, you and I; we don't have to be enslaved to the sins of our past. Some, or much, of what happened to us in the past may not have been our choice; but what we do about it, from this moment forward, IS our choice. We can allow the events of yesterday (accommodatively speaking) to rule our today's and tomorrow's , or we can leave them in the past where they belong and become stronger by overcoming those things. We can re-frame the context whereby those memories come; we can use them as an opportunity to express our gratitude to God that He's allowed us the time and the strength to overcome and move beyond those destructive times of our past. We can choose to make those memories triggers for good, rather than triggers for sin. Everything we do after the fact of those memories being resurrected is our decision.

Today I have been on this earth for 32 years. Like we tend to do at times like these, I have reviewed my life to see how far I've come from the past years and where I am aiming to go from here as long as my life is preserved by God. I look back and see so much good, but among the good I see about 7 years that were wasted, good years that I spent enslaved;  7 years of darkness that I spent trying to silence, kill, and bury what good there was inside of me. But, since that time, I've come so far beyond the old me; it has been over 8 years since casting off that old way of living, and I've been afforded the opportunity to live an abundantly blessed life since overcoming. I've married my best friend and we've been blessed with a child, a son, with whom we shall meet very soon! I've grown exponentially spiritually, through careful study of God's word and much encouragement and wise instruction from my brethren. I have the blessing of worshipping with, and being a part of, a congregation of truly salt-of-the-earth people; we share an abundant love for God and one another, I cherish each one so much and the blessing they are, and will be, to my young family. I have a good job that allows me to provide for the needs of my family and allows us to help others. I have an amazing wife who loves the Lord, lifts me up, encourages me to greater service in the Lord, and loves me faithfully; I'm married to the woman of Proverbs 31 and I'm keenly aware of all the reasons I don't deserve her; I'm thankful daily that God saw fit to bless me well beyond all I could ever hope by giving us the privilege of meeting one another and falling in love. I'm blessed with the privilege to love her and cherish her daily; aside from my salvation through Christ, she is the single best thing to ever happen to me and continues to be every day. She loves me for the man I have become, not for the man I was. Part of what enables me to be the man I am now is overcoming my sinful past, she knows that and she has helped me to realize that. What a truly blessed man I am. But, as I reflect, I'm very much aware of how quickly sin can rip all these blessings from my grasp, tear apart my life, and leave me with no one and nothing. I've seen the ugly side of life and what sin can do, it's not pretty and it's not desirable; the trade-off between the momentary pleasure of sin and the consequences we reap for giving in to that sin doesn't add up, it's a complete lose-lose situation.

Friends, we can overcome and we can move on. We must truly repent of the sins we've engaged in throughout our lives and gather the strength and courage, from God and the tools He's given us, to move on with life. We can't control others and the things they say/do, but we can, and must, control how we deal with such times when they come up. God gives us the strength to overcome; may we put our trust in Him to believe His word that we can move on from our past and be better as a result. Let the sins of yesterday make us wiser in how we handle the next temptation and the next sin when satan lies at the door. Repent of the sins, but don't forget the lessons learned and the pitfalls to avoid. "Draw near to God and the devil will flee from you." Believe it, obey it, live it. God gives us all the ability and the tools to do His will, may we have the desire and good sense to put His word into practice daily. 

Press on!