God’s Toolbox: Our Past

 

Over the past couple of years, God has been unpacking my past. He has shown me the deep seeded lies I’ve lived by since childhood and the ripple affect they caused of bad decisions, poor behaviors, destructive relationships, depression, and on and on.  It is thought provoking to see how a couple of lies can create so much damage.

I have often viewed the things of my past as a bunch of screw ups and mistakes that revealed a person in need of a complete overhaul. They were things that didn’t have to happen but what was done was done and I needed God to come in and clean things up. I tried to be the sweeper but I just flung dirt around.

But the other night, my insightful husband re-framed it for me.

He said it isn’t that my past, his or anyone else’s is a big mess that would be better off voided like a bad check, but all the things we went through brought us to where we are today. Each detail served a purpose in chiseling us into who we are. We went through those things to grow and learn what we needed to learn.

I started thinking about what he said and though the things I faced were painful, hard, and sometimes pushed me to the edge of insanity, he was right. Looking back, I wouldn’t change a thing. I can’t believe I am saying that, but you know it is true. Through each experience God has taught me His wisdom that I wouldn’t have learned otherwise.

As God’s kids what we consider the wreckage of our lives are His tools to teach us what we need to learn, if we are willing. If we aren’t willing we remain on the hamster wheel running in the same destructive circles until we decide to sit up and listen.  A past unaddressed remains a controlling force in our lives. We aren’t to live in the past, but grow from it and live free.

As a good teacher, God won’t let us move on to the next level until we learn our ABCs. It is either keep running or starting listening. And the lessons are much deeper than we are a mess in need of Him. Each situation holds a deeper truth that will surprise you, as I am finding out.

This earthly existence is a training ground. It is a place where our spirits learn that our way is not the way to go and God’s is.  We are supposed to make mistakes that is how we learn that only God’s ways bring life, joy, peace, and intimacy with Him.  We start going backwards if we get wrapped up in this life and cease to realize that everything is to bring us into union with God.

Trying out many different paths that promised success and failing miserably inside and out is what brought me to my knees and when I fell before Him in every area of my life; I started to live the life I desired for the first time. So if everything I went through was to bring me closer to God and to create unity between us in purpose, will and desire – yeah it was all worth it and I am thankful for it.