My thought for the day....

Today I did my little devotional thingie from this book thing I've got....I think its called "My upmost for His Highest"...anyways, a very small comment at the end of the passage got me to thinking. In Genesis, Lot and his family escaped the wrath of God upon Sodom and Gomorrah, and they were told specifically to not look back. Unfortunately his wife did, and she was turned into a pillar of salt.

Then theres the verse in Luke (keeping in mind I just spent no less than 45 mins finding this verse!!!!!! Who knew they spell it plow instead of plough!!!) 

Luk 9:62 But Jesus said to him, “No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”

This is the first verse that came to mind after I thought of Lot...and I have come to realise that I have been guilty of wanting to hold on to my past. And to most that would seem silly...after all, my past is pretty bad!

But there are certain things that I still cling to....people, places...my best friends in high school for example. There are two in particular who come to mind....my heart has been hurting for years over the loss of those friends. I think about them, remenise about them, even sometimes they crop up in my dreams and nightmares! But while I am looking back....I cannot look forward. I have come to realise I am missing the people God is putting into my life right now. Im too busy thinking about old friends, old family members, old times...but the truth is...NOW is the time, and the friends I have right now are the friends I should be concerntrating on. Those people that I used to love, that I used to know, that I used to think so highly of and devote my time and thought to....they're gone. And what's more, they dont care. I know, becuase I have tried and tried to contact them...I've written letters, emails, etc, I've told them Im thinking about them, how much I care, what Im doing...and they dont care. I suppose that I am looking at what things used to be like with rose coloured glasses...that perhaps they didnt really treat me the way I always remember them. Don't get me wrong, there are one, maybe two people I could consider still my friends from those days, but the rest have moved on......THEY have, but I havent.

Matthew's Gospel says : Mat 19:29 And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife[k] or children or lands, for My name’s sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life.

I think abut my family too..I go on my estranged brother's myspace and search for clues into his life...pictures of him, comments about what he is doing, where he is going, what he is listening to...but he is gone also, and he doesnt care. I know this because my parents know where I am, and yet my brother has never once tried to contact me. I miss having a brother...and I have mourned for years the death of what our future could be like had we stayed in contact with eachother.

Php 3:13 Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead,

I confess, to anyone reading this, that I have been stale...I have kept looking behind me for things that arent there. Those friends are not there, my brother is not there, and they never will be again. I have to learn to let them go...I have to pray to God that God will release me from those memories, that one day I can listen to those songs without feeling pain, that I can look at those photos without hurting. I will never know why I felt for those people as deeply as I did. They certainly never felt that way about me. Perhaps I will never meet anyone as a friend who feels as deeply for my friendship as I do for theirs. But I will never know unless I start walking forward.

So now I say goodbye to those people, with a smile. I say goodbye to my dad, to my step mother and to my brother. I say goodbye to my old friends, who I valued so highly for so long whether they deserved it or not. I say goodbye to the memories that bring me pain, to the songs that take me back and for ANYTHING that satan has been using to cast my mind back to that time - to take me out of all the blessings God has given me in this day, in this moment, and instead get me stuck in things of the past. I pray God helps me to walk on, and not look back anymore.