Forget What Lies Behind
Have you ever been alone in the car listening to music when a song initiates a memory? Without question, I laugh aloud when I hear “Help Me Rhonda.” Our oldest son, Austin at the age of eight, sang to me on a Disney Cruise during the family karaoke night. He decided to change the lyrics a bit, “Help Me Mama, Help Help Me Mama!”
An old hymn can place me back in a pew at the Bumpus Mills Freewill Baptist Church right beside my Mama Dora, clicking my black patent leather shoes together as the piano played. Moments never to be forgotten. Yet, a sadness always envelopes my heart when I hear, “I Come to the Garden Alone.”
Donna Summer caused the crowd in 1987 to go wild during a Las Vegas concert. There I sat with my second husband on our honeymoon, not knowing that less than a year later he would walk out. The second I hear one of her songs, details of the pain comes flooding back.
”…One thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead.” Philippians 3:13
Triggers like music often times catapult me into my past, which only brings about shame. I had to learn to quickly change the channel, but often times I waited too long and I would relive ugly moments of who I used to be for hours. In my early years as a believer, every time I prayed, I asked God to forgive me for all that I had done. Remorse and guilt laced my words as I begged the Lord for forgiveness. It wasn’t until I heard evangelist Beth Moore say,
”If you continue to ask God to forgive you of your past sins every time you pray, you are not believing His word that promises to forgive as soon as you ask.”
“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins…” 1John 1:9
After that, I began to see myself as God sees me—a new creation. That is when I truly put my past behind me and reached for what lay ahead. What about you—do you need to do the same?
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old things have passed away. Behold, new things have come.” 2Corinthians 5:17