The Haunting Past

It is a fact and you will agree

The past sometimes gets in the way

Even in the Christian’s life

It can loom like the present day.

No doubt it has happened to you

Like it often does to me

That rather than moving forward

You are caught in your history.

Do not get me wrong

Frequent reflection is a must

But when it arrests your progress

It is just like a virus.

It will make you sick

It will start its havoc in the mind

Next it will affect your body

This is the order every time.

Positive reflection is beautiful

Negative!  Get out of there!

For before you know it

Your past will drag you back with fear.

Isaiah chapter 43 and verse 18

Is instructive in this light

“Remember ye not the former things”

With such is not your fight.

“Neither consider the things of old”

For they are in the past

God is reconstructing your life

Now you are in a different class.

The truth of the matter is

We can do nothing to change our past

The present should be our concern

And shaping our future God’s task.

Look again at Isaiah chapter 43

This time focus on verse 19

“Behold I will do a new thing.”

Surely God is at your scene.

“Now it shall spring forth,” says God

“Shall ye not know it?”

In the wilderness He’ll make a way

This is God’s reassuring edict.

We can trust the Lord on this

As a matter of fact on anything He says

And defying the haunting past

March forward in all His ways.

God is faithful to His promises

In fact God can never lie

And whatever He has promised

Not even the devil can deny.

So “Feeling down on your luck?”

Forever haunted by your past?

Time to let it go my friend

For you God has a present task.

It’s the purpose he has always had

And He wants you to walk in it

Learn the lessons from your past

But make God’s purpose your daily habit.

Stewart Russell © June 2018