Daily Journal: 18 March

Don’t Look Back

The only reason I have to look back is to be able to see what God has done and how far He has brought me.

If I keep looking back to recite what life looked like, what it felt like, who was around me and what they did or said to me, I relive old feelings and old losses, old hurts, old animosities and definitions of myself. In reliving my past, I lose the prize of my present. Even if my present is still a hard place, it’s not the same place. I’ve grown through what I’ve come through.

What are the stages I've come through? I release those stages. They helped me to grow but I don't continue to define myself in those stages of my life. I define myself in where I am now. This is who I am. I'm not to look back for any other reason. That’s not who I am anymore.

Genesis 19:17 (NLV)

When they had brought them out of the city, one of them said, “Run for your life! Do not look behind you. Do not stop until you are out of the valley. Run to the mountains or else you will be destroyed.”

Leaving things behind and not allowing them to become a hindrance to me anymore is like running for my life. Come out of the valley and run to the mountains. I need to consider what I'm leaving behind and follow God into my future.

What’s relevant to me now? Where is God calling me to? How is God calling me to rise? These are the things I need to focus on and redefine myself in. He's telling me, don't look back.

1 Kings 19:21 (GNT)

Then Elisha went to his team of oxen, killed them, and cooked the meat, using the yoke as fuel for the fire. He gave the meat to the people, and they ate it. Then he went and followed Elijah as his helper.

Elisha made sure he had nothing to return to when he followed Elijah. He burned everything; his means of living. He shared what he had with those around him, in a sense blessing them, and left with nothing else to tie him to his past. That part of his life was over. He was embracing a new life and a new identity. He was defining himself differently.

What is God calling you to leave behind? What is God calling you to embrace? Spend some time acknowledging those things, then commit to the focus God wants you to have, committing to your identity in Him and in how you are defining yourself now.

2 Corinthians 5:17 (NKJV)

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.