The Prison of the Past

  No one wants to lose their freedom and be confined to a prison. A prison is a place of restriction and confinement. In a prison you lose freedom of movement. Someone else makes the decisions for you. You are told when you will eat.....when you will sleep.....what you will eat and with whom you will live.  What you can see, taste, feel and experience is largely outside the ability of your will to choose. Prison is meant to be a punishment for the violation of societies laws and interests. You are placed in prison to protect the welfare of those who choose to live within the lines of moral constraint. Paint outside the lines of society norms, and you risk living in a place where all the lines are painted for you.

  There is another kind of prison that many of us live in that has no physical bars to control us. Many of us live in a prison of our past failures and mistakes. We live in a place of confinement known as 'regret'. We place the handcuffs and shackles on our minds. We forfeit freedom in the name of self punishment. We lose the ability to hope. We chain ourselves to those we have failed and disappointed and cease living forward looking lives.

  To be forgiven for all our failures and sins is a difficult concept to accept and receive. The message of the world is 'someone must pay' and we naturally agree with this to the point of self destruction and abasement. Often the most difficult person to forgive in life is ourselves.  We cry out for forgiveness but our emotions are often overwhelmed by what we've done.... and by what's been done to us. We wonder when we will 'feel' forgiven and obtain peace on the inside.

  Being set free from the chains of our past is a journey of faith and grace. There is a grace walk of transformation of our thought life.  In Paul's letter to the church at Phillipi we hear the heart of someone set free from the prison of his past by a living Savior, "God's way of making us right with himself depends on faith. As a result I can really know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I can learn what it means to suffer with him, sharing in his death, so that, somehow, I can experience the resurrection of the dead."

  We need to be raised from the dead many times in this life.  Death is not just a physical event. Death is something we experience every time we come face to face with the results of our own sins..... and the sins of others. The wages of sin is death.... a death of what we expected, wanted or desired from life. Until we experience the life that is in Jesus Christ, the one who conquered death for ever, we will never overcome the inherent crippling power of death. When the storms of life come, we are overcome with despair. We might continue to breath..... to sleep.....to eat.......but we lose any sense of satisfaction and peace. We consign ourselves to the prison of our own discontent. We become a part of the endless train of humanity known as the 'living dead'. How do we come out of the imprisonment of our past?

  It's important we understand that the walk out of the prison of our past is a process.  Paul continues in his letter to the church at Philllipi, "I am still not all I should be, but I am focusing all my energies on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I strain to reach the end of the race and receive the prize  for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us up to heaven." (see Phillipians ch. 3)

  Grace has the power to heal and transform our memories. The question is not, 'will I ever forget?'. The question is how will I choose to interpret what has happened to me and through me? God's grace  enables us to move past our pain and suffering to see that 'God meant it for good'. Part of our healing is released when we make the decision to lean forward into the future with God. We 'forget' so that we can receive the future marked out for us. This is not mental trickery. You are not obliterating the past by a spiritual lobotomy. You are instead receiving a revelation from God about how indeed he causes, 'all things to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them." The path of Christ followers is not an easy path or one without thorns. Instead it's a path where not a single thorn is wasted in the transformation of our souls.

  Are you living in the prison of the past? Are you 'stuck' in despair, pain and disappointment with how life has treated you? Today, I urge you to allow God to pour out grace into your prison of regret. Jesus has defeated every form of death that exists in our world. When we choose to receive his forgiveness for what we have done..... and to forgive what has been done to us.... the doors of our prison can spring open.

  There is still so much left of life for all of us to experience..... to share and to love. Come out today and be set free from the prison of your past. A new day dawns just beyond the doors of our broken places.  Jesus died for your freedom.  Don't waste another moment of life in torment or despair. Grace is calling......welcome home.

Jim