Perhaps you and I found the same sad humor in yesterday’s quote – trying to picture ourselves moving forward and tripping over an obstacle behind us.
Preposterous, yet I suspect we all do it.
Paul wrote, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.“ But we can’t be free, not really, until we stop revisiting mistakes Jesus already forgave.
I’ve never met the kids at our Home of Hope. But I’ve listened to and sat with enough traumatized people to have a fairly good sense of their mindset.
People who’ve experienced trauma and abuse can know in their heads they did nothing wrong. They didn’t deserve what happened to them. But even years down the road, “knowing” often isn’t enough.
There’s still shame – the sense something is wrong with me – and guilt – the sense I did something wrong. They can follow Jesus and believe when he says that’s all nonsense.
Somehow, it doesn’t matter. And I suspect you and I can identify. Hopefully we haven’t been trafficked, but all of us have something we struggle to release.
In our own way, we’re moving forward and kicking rocks behind us.
It occurs to me – Jesus never promised an obstacle-free path. He promised he would journey with us, be with us as we navigate life’s difficulties.
However, he absolutely DID promise to remove the obstacles behind us. The mistakes, the poor choices, all the stuff we hide because of guilt or shame – it’s all forgiven. Those rocks don’t exist any longer.
Perhaps we ought to focus on the first part of yesterday’s quote: Jesus sees our potential instead of our past.
He sees each of us as unique individuals, created for a specific purpose. While the specific purpose may remain a mystery, what if we leaned into the journey ahead?
Stop kicking nonexistent rocks behind us.