LET YOUR BITTER PAST NOT RULE YOUR PRESENT

Let your bitter past not rule your present but help you to guide your present and future to enrich your experiences and motivate you to have a happier life.

Every person might have had bitter experiences of one kind or another. There is no one who may not have had bad experiences throughout his life because life is not a bed of roses, even if it is so, roses also have thorns with them. If you allow yourself to worry about past life incidents, you are spoiling not only your present by not enjoying your God-gifted day but also making yourself and people around you unhappy and bitter (as so many are not blessed to see today, or they are sick at home or at the hospital, or under some kind of misery).

Worrying is an unproductive and overthinking act. It does not serve us anything good.

Overthinking in this way is called rumination. While you worry about what might occur in the future, you ruminate about events that have already happened. A ruminative reaction to an event often triggers memories of similar situations from the past and an unproductive focus on the gap between the real and ideal self.

Why do you worry so much about your past when it cannot help to improve or correct the past days? You must learn to forgive and forget those incidents. By doing this great act you might think that you are doing a great favor to those who hurt you, but it is an act of kindness towards yourself as you are able to sleep your nights peacefully and carry out your day’s work with more enthusiasm.

Here are 5 Bible verses that light the way ahead:

1. In 2 Corinthians 5:17, God says, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”

He says that old things are just that. Old. And gone.

2. In Isaiah 43:18-19, “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.”

God has something new for me and you, and He wants us to look, to see what He’s doing.

3. In Exodus 23:20, “See, I am sending an angel ahead of you to guard you along the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared.”

God has sent an angel ahead of us. He doesn’t send us alone as we walk into an unknown future.

4. In Job 17:9, “The righteous keep moving forward, and those with clean hands become stronger and stronger.”

Moving forward with Him makes us stronger.

5. In Philippians 3:13-14, “Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”

When I forget about those things that are behind me, then I can reach forward to the prize God has waiting. It would be such a shame to miss that.

It’s time to quit what’s done and over and look ahead to what I can do for Him in the future.

It is a very normal act of family members, friends, and relatives to keep count of the help rendered but it should not go to the extent that such account makes the life of the receiver miserable for the receiver in most cases is less fortunate than the giver and unable to return the favor. Again, it is forgotten by most of the fortunate ones that their act of kindness is rewarded by the Almighty through someone else and not the one whom you had shown mercy. If this is realized and accepted by people in general, situations would be much better and harmonious.

If we understand that we are mere instruments in the hands of the Almighty to receive and share His wealth with underprivileged, we will not feel bad for helping others or expect them to return the favor with interest and thus save us from the unnecessary worries of life. Here we can thank our Lord for blessing us with prosperity instead. We may have a hundred reasons to say that it is because of our hard work, effort or pro-active actions that had helped us to rise in life but without the grace of God efforts of humans are futile.

We also need to accept the fact that one day, we all need to leave this world with all its prized possessions. That day if we can leave peacefully, we are blessed. We have done our duty with justice.
"But not a hair of your head will perish! Even so, every detail of your body and soul - even the hairs of your head! - is in my care; nothing of you will be lost, but not a hair of your head will be lost." (Luke 21:18)

LET US PUT FULL TRUST IN THE ALMIGHTY FOR HE IS TRUE TO HIS WORD.