Past, present, future

Facebook users are often given an opportunity to share their past postings. Many take advantage of this opportunity and share what has been a wonderful memory or story. Its a good thing. We all love and cherish our past achievements, relationships that have been meaningful and the "good times". But I am sure there are some memories we want to erase totally from our lives as well. Failures, unfaithfulness and "some people" are but examples, ready for "delete button".

Almost all of us have some skeletons in our closets. Our past can either have a negative effect on us or be a catalyst to propel us to achieve more and greater things in the future. Some people always dwell on the glories of the past and live in the satisfaction that they have "arrived". Others dwell deep over their failures and bad experiences and live in self condemnation, for the rest of their lives. Both groups never move forward.

Paul tells us of his thinking pattern in Philippians 3:13 - No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, (NLT)

Paul has already achieved so much in his life by the time of this writing, yet he never dwelt on the successes or failures of the past. The success and the failures of the past should either be a platform to built upon or learn from. The past can never be corrected and undone. That's the sad reality of life. But we can work on the "now" and "reset" the future with the leading of the Holy Spirit and sound counsel from godly people. This is where our purpose, goals and vision become more important  than any mighty victory of the past. The moment we stop pursuing these issues, we are as good as non-existent. 

Dr John Edmond Haggai, the founder of Haggai Institute, is already 93 years old but he has got plans/vision for the next 20 years. No wonder such people achieve great things in life and for God.

The Holy Spirit is willing to help us to reshape our future but are we willing to let go of the past? We can live in the rhetorics of all the "God will do this and that for me", but will never achieve anything   if the past still haunts us or makes us comfortable.  But for those who live for the present and work towards the future, great things are in store.

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