Dreaming Forward

             Sunday was one of those days.  Anyone else out there seem like some days are harder to get to Church than others?  

            There are Sundays for me that the snooze seems to never satisfy the lazy bones that don’t feel like getting up.  There are mornings in which you watch the time pass without getting ready because you are too whooped to do something as simple as getting dressed and ready.  Sometimes it seems as though procrastination is my best friend. Well… last Sunday was a day like that.  It was a struggle to get going and get to Church.  We all woke up sleepy, needing more rest.  We seemed to be dragging again to get into the car to leave on time. There was a lull to the speed that we were moving, and once again the reality hit us that we might be late. If that doesn’t describe your family on Sunday mornings, well… you will just have to take my word for it.

            To be honest, I’ve noticed a pattern over the time that has passed since I became born again as believer in Jesus. It seems to be that the hardest services to make are the exact services that are the most pertinent, powerful, and promising to the health of your spiritual condition and walk with the Lord.  Call me crazy, but at least in my life the very services that I almost didn’t get to were the exact ones that seem to be most important for me to attend.  That in a nutshell was Sunday’s church service.

            We sat up in the balcony once again as we tend to be a bit more unsettled than others.  We have a 17 year old, a 14 year old, and a 3 year old. Being all in one place at one time is like trying to align the planets together, and to be still and quiet through the whole service is an even greater task.  I sat up in the balcony waiting on my wife.  She was in transit taking our 3 year old to class.  There was enough distractions to grab my attention and take it off into another far away land.  I wasn’t feeling too good, as I was a bit dizzy and out of sorts still from my injury.  With all that was going on, and as difficult as it was to get to my seat, it would have been easy to just fade away into the stained glass windows of thought.  No sooner than I opened my Bible, I realized this was a service I definately needed to hear.  Once again, it was one of those days.

            I quickly became inspired as God was speaking right into my core.  It was right there and then, as I sat upstairs, that the simple but profound message was spoken by our pastor.  It might have been his lips that said the words, but God was the one who took the message to a deep and purposeful place in my heart.  Pastor Dale Adams was used to do the speaking, and with him God inserted a word inside me.

            And so after being challenged to the core, I want to suggest the same challenge to you.            

What does the word “past” mean to you?            

            My wife has a saying that she usually says at least once a day to me: “let lying dogs lie.”  By that, she means that I shouldn’t rouse things up and make a situation out of something if things don’t need to be.  I’d like to take that phrase and apply it to something a little deeper.  Today I’d like to apply it to a subject that many of us don’t wish to often look into.  It is the subject of our past.

            Many of us (myself included), have a past that we often would like to just let rest alone, sleeping, and quiet. Some of us would like to keep the skeleton closed and left alone in the closet.  Others would like to take our past and drop it off a cliff, leaving it to die in the middle of nowhere.  In all honesty though, many of us struggle with the simple fact that we have a past that tries to haunt us.  If your past is sleeping, we tend to not want to poke it or wake it up.  “Let lying dogs lie, for Pete’s sake!” I can hear her telling me once more… but what do we do when our past is awoke, alive, and pursuing us?

            The voices that we hear are echoes of hurtful memories from long ago.  They call to us and remind us of our failures, and bring to mind the moments in which we didn’t meet other people’s (or our own) expectations.  Many times in life our shortcomings or sins might feel like shackles that weigh us down and anchor us to unfavorable places, burdens of the past.  Even when we try so desperately to continue on in genuine repentance, our efforts might be silenced and halted in a sudden halt of fear.  Haunting figures of the past come to us, tapping us on the shoulder and whispering to our ears that we aren’t good enough to fulfill the life God intends for us. Clothed in shadows, they hand us the proof of old memories as evidence that their voices are legit.  We often accept these lies, figuring that there is enough credit to them, preventing us from risking any further pain or embarrassment.  Some of us wish that the past could be erased, and the hurts and scars of what was long ago just be forgotten.  

            Seriously though… what does the past mean to you?   

            More importantly, what is your past saying to you that is keeping you from the future Christ wants for you to live out?

            Is there another way?

            For many people reading this post, there are things done (or not done) in the past that you have never been able to recover from.  There might be a broken relationship, a betrayal, a loss, or possibly even a sin you feel too “unforgivable.”  It sounds silly to say it, but once the Lord takes our sin away, we as human beings are the only ones who put the guilt and shame on our own shoulders.

Luke 22:54-62

Then they seized him and led him away, bringing him into the high priest's house, and Peter was following at a distance. And when they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat down together, Peter sat down among them. Then a servant girl, seeing him as he sat in the light and looking closely at him, said, “This man also was with him.” But he denied it, saying, “Woman, I do not know him.” And a little later someone else saw him and said, “You also are one of them.” But Peter said, “Man, I am not.” And after an interval of about an hour still another insisted, saying, “Certainly this man also was with him, for he too is a Galilean.” But Peter said, “Man, I do not know what you are talking about.” And immediately, while he was still speaking, the rooster crowed. And the Lord turned and looked at Peter. And Peter remembered the saying of the Lord, how he had said to him, “Before the rooster crows today, you will deny me three times.” And he went out and wept bitterly.

            I’ve often thought about that passage. Could you imagine being on the receiving end of that “look” Jesus gave Peter?  Could you dare to think what it would feel like to have the Savior Himself look you right in the eye after doing something so awful and terrible as betrayal?  I cannot fathom how painful it would have been to let the Lord down like that.  Especially for Peter, the bold and brave man who seemed to show no fear at all, one would expect this disciple to be strong in confrontation.  He said so with his own mouth earlier in the book of Matthew.

Matthew 26:34-35

Jesus said to him, “Truly, I tell you, this very night, before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.” Peter said to him, “Even if I must die with you, I will not deny you!” And all the disciples said the same.

            When the rooster crowed and the eyes of the Savior met the eyes of Peter, there was no doubt what had just occurred. Betrayals are painful.  When friends turn their back on you it hurts. There can be terribly deep hurts and scars from such a thing in a desperate time of need.  Honestly, Peter’s reaction was the only one that I can even think appropriate.  He “went out and wept bitterly.”

            This brings me to the point of tody’s post. We all have fallen.  We have all come up short.  We might of not had a rooster crow in our ear to alarm us of our faults and failures, but there are parts of all our pasts that have the potential to knock us down for the count.  Peter certainly had reason to hide his face in shame and abandon the faith out of embarrassment.

            But he didn’t.

            Peter is an excellent example of the proper way to deal with a past that is trying to bite you hard.  Yes, he was ashamed.  Yes, he probably felt very sheepish the first time he met up with the rest of the disciples.  Most certainly he would of felt unworthy to see the Lord again in any near future event.  When most of us would hide and cower, Peter shows us how to properly deal with our past.

            Three days later, when Resurrection Sunday came around, Peter gave his past a drop kick in the butt and ran to the future he longed to have. He must have longed for restoration, and missed the fellowship he had with Christ. He wasted no time on beating himself up. With him we see the important idea to "dream forward."

Luke 24:1-12

But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel. And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise.” And they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb they told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles, but these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. But Peter rose and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; and he went home marveling at what had happened.

            Although it hurt the Savior in a real and significant way, Peter was not going to lie down, play dead, and let his past dictate his future.  He wasn’t going to allow the haunting voices of the past keep him out of commission.  On the contrary, his heart was grieved in genuine repentance after sinning, but that’s where he left it.  He didn't get tangled up in the emotion of the matter. He didn't wallow in self-pity. When he heard word that Jesus had risen, he wasted no time… he ran. He went right on in to get a good look of the tomb and see the news for himself.  He wasn’t going to let shame or embarrassment keep him from the relationship he had so closely enjoyed with his King. He wanted it back.  He wanted to be restored and put back on track.  He marveled at His Savior.

            Did the Lord hold his sin against him?  Certainly not!  God has promised to remove our sins as far as the east is from the west. Peter had a great calling on his life and would be the foundation of the early church.  Did Peter have a big future to look forward to?  Absolutely!  Would the church have suffered if he would of went belly up and wallowed in guilt or shame instead of jumping right back into his purpose? Emphatically, yes. With God's help, Peter put his big boy pants on and got right back into things.

            Sunday morning, our pastor declared a very deep and profound statement to us all.  “One thing that will keep us from the hope of our future is hanging onto our past.”

            I couldn’t have said it any better than that.  

            What hurts, sins, and setbacks are keeping you from the life the Lord is waiting for you to have?  What lies and twisted truths do you hear in your mind, that are telling you “you’re not good enough” to serve the Lord in that capacity?  What taunting thoughts whisper in your ear, telling you that what you’ve done in the past is too big to overcome?  How many times does the war in our mind dictate our actions? How often do we succumb to the voices that say what we have done in our past is “too big” to let us reach for the future? What limits do we see in your past that God doesn’t see in your future?  

If there is one thing that Life Compass Ministries wants to pass on to its readers, it is that our God is the God of health, healing, and redemption.  

So my challenge to you today is simple. Pick up your anchor and throw it away.  Let God breathe life into your sails and push you forward into His dream for your life.  Give the past a boot overboard, and don't look back.  Dream forward into the horizon of where God is taking you.  Take hold of it. Breathe it. Live it.

by Chuck Carr