As far as our identities are concerned, we have two choices: We can
be defined by who we were or by who we are. We can be defined
by what happened to us and by what we did in the past or by what
happens to us and by what we do today. I hope we are not defined
by who we were yesterday but rather by who we are today.
The choices are ours—not others—to make. We, who are defined
by who we were, continue to live in the past. We still act and think
like we used to, and we still blame what happened to us in the past.
In other words, we cannot let go of the past. We, who are defined
by who are, do not forget or deny the past. We embrace the bad
and the shameful and we still feel bad whenever we think of them,
but we do not let them control us anymore. We move on. We don’t
tear the page—because we can’t anyway—but we turn the page.
But this is what we need to be cognizant of: The wind can blow and
turn the page back! The wind of popularity, the wind of praise, the
wind of accomplishment, the wind of influence, the wind of wealth,
the wind of pain and disappointment, the wind of failure. So, don’t
neglect to put our finger on the current page, lest, in a split second,
the wind blows and turns the page back to our darkened days. I
have seen many who got blown off by the wind and catapulted to
the past. Suddenly the past became their present—shamefully.
The other day Santy and I talked about friends that we met years
ago who still live in the past. As the Bible has warned us, our sin can
and will find us out, so, their past has finally caught up with them.
Even though they try to disentangle themselves from it, they
cannot. The past has become the present; the consequence of what
they did then, is now here. Our hearts bleed with them but the train
has left the station; we cannot stop it. But Grace can. God’s grace.

Pastor Paul