“Sometimes hurts and issues from the past slow us down.”

A thought by H. Norman Wright DMin. from his book, Discovering Who You Are And How God Sees You (p.41). Baker Publishing Group (Click on the book title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.)

They really do, don’t they?

Norman says, “You have to keep trying hard and expending so much effort before you finally start moving ahead. Excess emotional baggage can bog you down and rob you of blessing.

“As a counselor for more than forty years, I have talked with hundreds of people who are struggling with the effects of their past. Some of them are able to break free and move forward with their lives. Some cannot. Some struggle so hard just to make a slight bit of progress. Many are depressed because of what happened to them or because so many years were wasted before they finally came for counseling. I see it in their identity.”

He goes on, “I’ve found that people deal with their emotional baggage in several inappropriate ways. Many of them are riddled with regret over missed opportunities. I often hear people say things like, ‘If only I had…’ and ‘Oh, how I regret…’ Another way we live our lives in the past is described by Jack Hayford as ‘the remembrance of reversals.’ Reversals are similar to regrets except that this time the focus is on what might have been—‘if only that hadn’t happened’ and ‘if only I could have done it differently.’ Sometimes to expedite the process of growth and change, I ask counselees to make me a list of all their ‘if only's’ and regrets, so we can tackle each of them and eventually put them to rest.”

“But many of the regrets I hear about are vain regrets. Whether we regret what was done to us by others or what we have done to others (sins), our looking back to the past only cripples the blessings of the present and detours us from entering the future. I’m not saying that we should never regret the past. There is a place and time for this—once! And then we must begin moving in a new direction.”

He then says, “We all have baggage and personal failures from the past. The past is past, and the events in that time frame can never be changed. But the effects can.”

He later says, “What about you? You can get unstuck from the quicksand of past hurts by choosing to let God work in your life today.”

Would you turn to Him and let Him work in your life today?  Would you?

 Yes, yes!