Leave the past in the past.

As I sit in church this last day of 2017 and reflect on all that 2017 has held for me, I can’t help but be excited for a new and better future in 2018. Life was not kind to me in 2017. It was easily the most difficult year of my life on just about every level and from every angle. However, those difficulties brought me closer to God because of my need for the Father, the Comforter, my Helper. I saw sides of God that I could see no other way. In the midst of all the bad and hurt and destruction in my life, God did some truly amazing and life giving things.

For 2018, He says to forget even the good He did this past year, to lay aside every hurt and difficulty and place I missed it that could hinder me from moving forward and deeper, to put my sights on Him, the author and finisher of my faith, to expect even more this coming year, to know that the good I saw last year and all previous years of my life was just a fraction of what’s coming, to not base my future on any part of the past. He is going to do a new thing and make a way through the wilderness and wasteland that my life was left in during 2017. What He will do for me, He can do for you too.

“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”

Isaiah 43:18-19 NIV

“Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”

Philippians 3:13-14 NIV

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.”

Hebrews 12:1-3 NIV