Dealing With Your Past (Part 2)

Dealing With Your Past (Part 2)

By the time we're adults, we've had thousands of opportunities to practice old habits. Usually it's these habits that define our behaviors and thought patterns. As I have learned, it's those things we often take for granted or at face value that we think don't affect us. As the Bible says that "we see through a dark glass" and because the toughest problem we face is ourselves we don't think about how some things in our mind control our future with the past.

Imagine you were often shamed as a child for any little mistake. You learned to hide your mistakes at all costs, because it was the best way to avoid being mistreated. As an adult, you might continue to protect yourself vigorously against shame, even in situations that no longer call for it. Perhaps you married a loving partner who doesn't operate based on shame, and yet the old pattern of behavior continues as you fear exposing yourself to judgment. It takes considerable care and attention to change lifelong habits. Even when you know what you want to change, you can fall back into old ways in a time of crisis.

You might also ignore the effects of your upbringing on your current behavior, assuming you're responding purely to the situation in front of you. You might not recognize the filter through which you see the world, or the deeply held beliefs that color your perceptions. In fact, you might not even know that you have a choice in how you respond in certain situations because of previous trauma you've gone thru as a child. 

Our reactions are always some blend of the present and our life history. The past is a powerful foe when it is filled with pain, disappointment, and unfaithfulness. However, this is where you must get your thoughts under control. Satan constantly barrages me with things I could have done or should have done while pastoring. When your mind is weakened it is easy to see where traumas you experienced as a preacher's kid growing up in church or even as a pastor of 40 + years can devastate you mentally and spiritually. You get into such a state that you don't see your accomplishments, but you rehash what might or could have been "if only".

Everybody has a past, but it's what you do with it that controls the atmosphere around you. Do you let it control you or do you do as Paul did? It's all up to you to decide.

Philippians 3:13, 14 "Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."