LS029 - The Road Ahead

Hello everyone!

My last devotional post really got me thinking about a lot of issues I've walked through since leaving !Audacious and most of them were, as I've said already, related to the damage being at a place like that was actually doing to me.

I don't belong there anymore so it's time for me to continue to fix my eyes on the road ahead towards the destiny for which Christ is calling me onwards...

Separation from the Past

Sometimes, you have to go backwards in order to be able to go forwards, but sometimes you have to be willing to recognise when "going backwards" solves nothing. This is a transition I had to go through as I realised that a place like !Audacious Church is not for me anymore. Yes, I have had to deal with a lot of unforgiveness I have been struggling with, but if life wasn't with it's challenges, I might argue that it would be too easy.

I want to repeat the verse that I used last time because there's something else I want to pull out of it: -

Of course, my friends, I really do not think that I have already won it; the one thing I do, however, is to forget what is behind me and do my best to reach what is ahead.

Philippians 3:13 (GNB) emphasis mine

Last time I dealt with the point you reach where you recognise that ruminating on the past serves no purpose than to distract you. This time, I want to look at what it means to have a forward focus. This is an issue that I have covered many times on this blog and have likened it to a driver looking where he is going. You drive where you look.

I believe that, sometimes, we have to abandon our focus on the past otherwise we will make zero progress to any of our hopes and dreams and, instead, be stuck in a temporal loop in our minds wondering when things devolved to a standard that we are now unhappy with. It is all too easy to be stuck in our mental traps of rumination and dwelling on the unchangeable past.

How do we "reach what is ahead" though?

Reach What is Ahead Before What is Behind Consumes You

It's easy for me to say this but not always to do it and that is to look back at that verse I've just quoted: -

...the one thing I do, however, is to forget what is behind me...

Here, I believe, is a key that can often be overlooked in our own walks because it is all too easy to think that the way we are today is a result of all the things that have happened up to this point. That's true. To an extent. But the real depth comes when we realise that it is actually a result of the way we have chosen to respond to these events.

The way we respond to something is what shows the true extent of our heart's condition from Jesus' own words in Luke 6:45: -

"A good person brings good out of the treasure of good things in his heart; a bad person brings bad out of his treasure of bad things. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of."

So what are our hearts full of?

Envy? Bitterness? Deceit? Unforgiveness?

Are we willing to admit that we might actually be holding onto things that, unless we drop them, can never allow us to achieve our full potential?

Unless we stop ruminating on the unchangeable past, we will effectively be trying to take our old baggage into new relationships and experiences which never ends well. I speak from experience here. That's what I realised as I separated myself from all of the issues I had become tangled up in when I went to !Audacious. Thanks to a very helpful friend of mine, I remembered that it is okay for my faith to appear like atheism to some of my former friends because I am on a journey to experiencing the divine.

I've covered, oftentimes, what that looks like for me and I must say that now, even though I don't go to church, I feel closer to God than I have ever done in my life before. EVER!

It's all thanks to making a daily commitment to read my Bible.

It's all thanks to keeping connected with God through prayer.

It's all thanks to realising that we are all interconnected in our lives whether we like it or not.

You see, whilst I cannot help out in a church environment right now as that's not for me today, it doesn't stop me keeping open to other opportunities to help my fellow man, or woman, when and where I can.

I don't claim to be perfect, I never have done.

I have learnt that managing people's expectations is utter nonsense, in my mind, because you either like me or you don't. If you like me then great, but if you don't, then that's also fine because I'm not going to set about trying to win you over.

That's not an insult; it's just a fact of life.

I'm trying to keep my focus, as best I can, on my road ahead and it has seen some painful separations from relationships that were starting to hold me back in my development. This is one of the reasons why I left !Audacious. After my history there, it was time for a fresh start somewhere else. Somewhere more accepting and supportive of me, just as I am. My own imperfect self.

The fact that I can still talk about it shows it's still an issue for me to be dealing with, but crucially, I know that things had to happen the way that they did to show me that only God is my ever present help today (Psalm 46:1).

Final Thought

In this unofficial two-part post, I hope that I have helped you see the value in spending some time in the past if only to recognise what not to do again in the future because, as write and philosopher George Santayana said: -

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

So, yes, whilst there is, I believe, a benefit to being aware of our past, the danger is not to become so consumed by it that it is all we see when we view ourselves in the mirror in the morning. Nor can we afford to let it become all we think about when our minds come to rest in a neutral position and there is brief calm amidst our chaos.

Our lives are not to be defined by the directions that we have travelled in throughout the past, but in the direction that we are heading in the future.

What about you? Which direction are you headed in?

Peace!

===TLP===