This is what I used to be:
A liar, a cheater, a manipulator, a con, a fake, a territorial jerk, a selfish angry diabolical drug addict.
But today I’m different. I’ve changed and I’ve grown.
I’ve been asked a time or two about my past. Whether I regret any thing I did. My response is no. I don’t. In fact, I’m thankful for what I went through.
My past is what it is. I can’t change it, I have no ability to improve it and the reality is no matter how hard I try I can’t totally forget it. Some would say that’s a problem. That a past full of mistakes, severed relationships and pain would not be something you’d want to carry around with you the rest of your life.
But I beg to differ. Although I don’t want to be judged by my past, I don’t want to shut the door on it either. Why? Because the past is where everything I need to change my future exists. It’s where my motivation lays, where my wisdom lives, where my growth is sparked and where my hope was born.
Today I have a future because God has freed me from my past. Forgetting what I went through and focusing only on the hope of today would eventually lead me back down a road of self-destruction; pretty soon, I’d start thinking that I had everything together, that I was the man and 100% responsible for where I am today. This “self’ driven existence will destroy me. And that’s a risk I refuse to take. So today I choose to leave the door to my past cracked open just enough to keep me grounded, humbled and hungry.
The truth for many of us is that the past does hold pain. We all used to be…. .something. And that something was probably not pretty. But when we make the choice to accept the past for what it is, admit we can’t change it (no matter how much we want to), we can begin to view the past through a filter that WILL change our future. This is the filter of grace, second-chances, motivation and renewed hope. This is the filter of God.
How has your past mistakes motivated you to change your future?
Is it hard for you to leave the door to the past cracked?
Leave your comments here below.
