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I recently wrote something that really got to me. It made me think about all the baggage we carry, especially the stuff that hurts. The pain we hold onto, even when it’s eating away at our happiness.
Have you ever noticed how we do this? We walk around carrying old pain, acting like it’s normal. We think everyone has their own burdens, so why not us? But the truth is, it’s hurting you. That bitterness, that old wound you keep revisiting, that thing someone did to you years ago that you replay every night, it all adds up.
Paul put it simply in
Philippians 3:13: forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to what’s ahead.
Forgetting doesn’t mean pretending it never happened. It means choosing not to let it control you anymore.
Last week, I spoke with someone who’s carried his dad’s rejection for forty years. His dad has been gone for twelve of those years, but he’s still arguing with a memory still trying to prove himself to someone who isn’t there anymore.
That’s what wasted pain looks like. It’s pain that could have taught you something or helped you grow, but instead, you just carry it like a trophy you don’t want but can’t let go of.
" Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old; behold, I will do a new thing.” Isaiah 43:18-19
God wants to do something new in your life, but you might be holding on to too much old pain to accept it.
Here’s my challenge for you. I wrote a longer piece about this at Alignment Ministries, and I’d like you to read it, really read it. Take some time to think about what you’re still carrying that God never meant for you to hold onto.
Because, friend, you weren’t meant to live tied to the past. You were meant to be free. That freedom begins when you finally choose to let go.
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