Journey into Lightl

Most of us have things from our past that we would like to forget about. So, we do. Or so we think. But our past often taints our present in surprising ways.

For example, in my childhood home, I was taught that I wasn’t very important, safe, or loved unless I was pleasing and achieving. When I lacked achievement and approval, I felt inadequate. But my feelings of inadequacy were not based on truth.

When I was 21, I left home and never fully faced these lies. I later learned that under God’s watchful care I am important, safe and loved by him all the time. But the past often leaked into my present as an adult and has made it difficult to receive God’s gift of importance, safety, and love. I still want to earn them. I still needed to face my past, put if off, and put on God’s love and grace.

Why The Past Needs to Be Faced

Our past is what has made us who we are today, both the good and the bad. The influences of family, friends, church, and society along with our choices have profoundly molded our beliefs, motives, and behaviors.

In some cases, our past and what it taught us clashes with God’s truth. For example, we may have been taught that it wasn’t okay to be who we are. But God says it is because we are his workmanship and that we are wonderful just the way we are.

Often this past leaks into our present and can affect how we feel about someone in our lives today, when we are actually responding to someone from the past that reminds us of this person. Several years ago I realized that part of my struggle working with a person in my church was that he reminded me of my dad, which was triggering unresolved father issues.

How Do We Face It?

Our goal needs to be to face our past, be healed where we need to be and to press on in being transformed and involved in God’s work in the world. To do this, we need to know ourselves well enough to determine what beliefs and habits need to be changed. For example, I felt good when someone bragged to the pastor about the group I led. I felt good because I thought I was more important because he would probably be impressed. But this thinking was from the past. The new thinking is that I am important because God tells me I am important, not because the pastor may think I am.

Our past powerfully influences us in many other subtle ways. These ways are so deep, we often need God’s help to detect false thinking and feelings. We can ask God to “Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my anxious thoughts; and see if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way” (Psalm 139:23-24).

Without growing in our knowledge of God, we can’t know what part of our past needs to be changed. But this knowledge of God will need to go deep into experiencing the truth to grasp what the implications are. For example, I realized that a fear from my past of being rejected, no longer applied. Instead, of indulging an old habit and belief of fearing flaws, I rested in the truth that God would never reject me (Hebrews 13:5).

Probably the most important thing we can do to face our past is to recognize how important it is to do it. Most of us don’t do it and we suffer for it. Those of us who ignore our pasts are prone to repeat them. Trace your family tree and see how the same sins and dysfunctions seem to crop up generation after generation. One reason is that it takes a lot of courage to face the past and make the necessary changes.

One of my passions has been to pass on to my children and grandchildren a more emotionally healthy spirituality than I was handed. To a large extent this is happening. One thing that has helped me is the willingness to examine my past, compare it to biblical truth, and with God’s help, choose to act differently. May I encourage you to ask God to show you any beliefs or behaviors from your past that may be hurting the legacy that you are passing on to your family and allow him to guide you into becoming more like him.