As usual, yinc pple get it 1st.. before the main crowd..
Contribution from me.
A bit long but take your time to read.
Hope it will minister to you.
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2 Cor 1: 3-4
For some of us and for most of us, the past can be very painful. We might be hurt deeply when we were betrayed by our loved ones. We might have an abusing father, an unloving spouse, or uncaring friends that have hurt us before. Nobody likes pain and so was Jesus, but yet He still chose to go to the cross and went through the pain of physical suffering and emotional pain, just for you and me. What we have been through in the past will help to give us a new glimpse of ourselves, of our God and of our future. If we don’t deal with our past, we will not be able to move forward and let God use us.
There are 2 keys to making peace with your past – found in Paul’s words in 2 Cor 1:3-4.
1st key is Who God is To Us (v3) which will give us a New Hope.
“… the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort…”
The 1st key to healing is to know who God is. He is the Father of mercies and the God of ALL comforts. He is overflowing, overwhelming with mercies and forgiveness. We have a God that bothers about us, a God that is near to us, and we know that God is actually involved in our pain.
Here are 4 steps we can take in making peace with our past. Of course, they sound easier said than done. I know because I am still learning.
1. Accept the reality. We need to know that we can’t change the reality. We can’t pretend we don’t have abusive parents, we don’t have unloving spouses and we live in a bed of roses. We can’t change the circumstances, but we can pray that God can change us through the circumstances.
2. Feel the loss. We need to come to terms with it. We need to tell ourselves that it is alright. Staying angry or bitter will not help. It is not simply deluding or bluffing yourself that I am alright, but it is a volitional choice that we can take. We can tell ourselves “it is well with my soul”.
3. Live with it. In this life, we may never get the answers that we want and our dreams may never come true. But there is no point in escaping, running away from it. We can change churches, but the problem will still be there. It means living with the pain and the thorns in it.
4. Re-invest your love and loss in God. He knows all our future and what He can do through us. It is not whether does God comfort us, BUT whether we allow Him to comfort us, whether we allow ourselves to move on. Of course, we might be thinking to ourselves that is ridiculous. Of course, we want God to comfort us. But God wants to comfort us through serving Him, the question is are you then willing to serve? And how does God comfort us through our service to Him?
Look out for the 2nd key to making peace with your past – What God Does Through Us (v4) in the next ... week..
Trust His Heart
All things work for our good though sometimes we can’t see how they could.
Struggles that break our hearts in two sometimes blind us to the truth.
Our Father knows what’s best for us; His ways are not our own.
So, when your pathway grows dim, and you just can’t see Him, Remember He’s still on the throne.
God is too wise to be mistaken.
God is too good to be unkind.
So when you don’t understand, when you don’t see His plan,
When you can’t trace His hand, trust His heart.
He sees the Master plan. He holds the future in His hands.
So don’t live as those who have no hope. All our hope is found in Him.
We walk in present knowledge, but He sees the first and the last.
And like a tapestry, He’s weaving you and me to someday be just like Him.
God is too wise to be mistaken.
God is too good to be unkind.
So when you don’t understand, when you don’t see His plan,
When you can’t trace His hand, trust His heart.
Yongfei.
