“My days are past, my purposes are broken off, even the thoughts of my heart.” (Job 17:11)

A few mornings ago I woke up with my mind overwhelmed and full of dread because of the dream I just had. In this dream, it was night and I was swimming in the ocean just offshore with a group of people from church. Suddenly a shark fin came up out of the water right next to me and began circling me. When I screamed “Shark!” everyone got out of the water leaving me to fend for myself. I looked over at the shore and all the people were gone. I guess they went back into the church building. Now, I was alone in the dark water with a shark swimming right up against me. There was nothing to do but fight him or die. I grabbed his fins and started to drag him out of the water. To my surprise, he didn’t fight me but stayed very still. I realized how small he was when I dragged him on the beach and picked him up. I was so angry, I decide to drown him by keeping him out of the water. I walked with him back to the building to show everyone when suddenly the shark turned into Shani, my dog that passed away in December of 2004. She was in distress and looked up at me. I started resuscitating her just like I did that night on the way to the Animal Hospital. Then I woke up. I went straight to the Word hoping that reading the Word for a while would calm me down. The Lord began to speak to my heart about holding on to the past and not letting it go. I was holding on to hurts, traumas and fears. Over the next several days I paid close attention to my thoughts and often found myself thinking (for quick moments) of past incidents, people that hurt me, times of shame and embarrassments, things in the past that scared me, etc. I caught each one and confessed it, asked the Lord to help me forgive those that hurt me and dealt with them as they surfaced. I didn’t even realized how often my mind stayed in the past until I really paid attention to it.

The scripture above in Job 17:11 was from a man in severe distress feeling like he was about to die, but it also depicts the way God wants us to let go of all things that are behind us. Our old plans and thoughts of the future that didn’t include God, the old ways and habits within our mind and heart that were not of God but of the world. The traumas we’ve suffered and those who have hurt us. They are past and dead. They don’t belong to us anymore. We might never truly forget some things, but we can continue to in the present and for the future. There are some things we may have to work on much harder and longer than others but there is no other way of moving forward unless we let the past go.

“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.”
(Philippians 3:13)

© Copyright Cheryl Taul
July 14, 2007