Way back before smartphones and before GPS, there was something called MapQuest. With MapQuest, you could print out easy-to-follow directions. Instead of your device telling you what to do and when, you had to remember what you had already done and where you were. Otherwise, you would make the wrong turn.

I’m directionally challenged, and sometimes I get lost. It was especially bad for me before the advent of smartphones and the constant presence of GPS. I’d forget where I had been and then wouldn’t know what I needed to do next, and so I’d get lost.

Just as when driving, in life we must know where we’ve been, where we are, and where we’re going.

Remember Where You Have Been (and who you were)

Why should we remember? Doesn’t Paul say, “forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead” (Phil. 3:13)? Yes, he does. But… Paul also says he was “a persecutor of the church” (v. 6). which is something he did in the past. He didn’t forget that fact.

Paul is emphasizing not forgetting, but focus. We are not to focus on the past. We are to focus on the path and prize before us (v. 14-15).

We know from Galatians 1:13 that Paul did, in fact, remember his “former life.” It was in part because Paul realized that formerly he “was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent” that he stood in awe of God’s mercy (1 Tim. 1:13).

Paul even called himself the foremost of sinners, but he knew and rejoiced that Jesus came to save sinners like himself (1 Tim. 1:15).[1] That’s what we see in Luke 7:46: Jesus said it is the person who knows they have been forgiven much, who loves much.

And remember, even the prodigal son is to rejoice and party. Not in a casual, lighthearted way, but with a profound sense of knowing that he was lost but is now found. 

The father welcomes him to the party. The father throws a feast. Not so much because of his past or despite his past, but because his past is past. There is great rejoicing because of the return.

Also, Ezekiel 16 gives a powerful analogy. It is a story about a baby girl who was abandoned. No eye pitied the baby (v. 5). It was left to wallow in its own blood (v. 6).

That is the sad and sick part of the story. Yet, it sets up the beauty of the rescue that happens. If we forget why the rescue was necessary, we’ll forget that the rescue even happened.

It might be difficult for Snow White to recount all the difficulties she faced, but if she forgets the curse she was under, then she won’t be as grateful to her prince, who rescued her.

The orphan outcast in Ezekiel 16 forgot her previous sorry state, and so she forgot her rescue and Rescuer. She did not remember the days of her youth, when she was naked and bare, wallowing in her own blood (v. 22). She forgot her past, so she forgot to be grateful. That’s what we’re liable to do if we forget our past. Sometimes our broken pasts are what highlight God’s transforming beauty.

Not sure if you’ve heard of the word kintsugi, but it is a Japanese word that means “joining with gold.” Kintsugi is a Japanese art form in which a broken vessel’s shards are put back together using gold lacquer. What was badly broken becomes beautiful.

In fact, the bigger the break, the better the beautiful gold shows. Sometimes glory is seen not through strength but through the Savior fixing what was shattered. God brings beauty from what is broken (Isaiah 61:3).

It’s also important to remember the past because it can help prevent us from being unnecessarily hurt in the future. Take Joseph in the Bible, for example. Joseph was mistreated by his brothers. And he did not simply ignore or forget how his brothers sinned against him. He wept over that reality even while he trusted the LORD and forgave his brothers (Genesis 45:1-5; 50:15-21).

Yet, he also helped his brothers to seriously face their sins (Gen. 42:14-20; 44:1-5). Remembering the past can also help prevent us from believing lies. Remembering can be a kind of light that exposes sin, sin that you have perpetrated, and sin that has been perpetrated against you. 

So, remembering is often not easy. It can be painful. Many do not want sin to be exposed (John 3:16-21). But as Anna Salter has said, “Darkness produces good mushrooms, but poor flowers.” Or as Dan Allender has said, “The past clings to the present like an intractable barnacle.”[2] If we want to move forward and blossom as God desires us to, sometimes we have to consider and heal from past wounds.

So, we can ask the LORD to search our hearts (Ps. 139:23-24) and ask Him to reveal any hurts that need healing. We cannot solve a problem until we see the problem for what it is.

Another way of saying it: we cannot give our burden to the LORD until we have acknowledged that it’s a burden (1 Peter 5:6-9). Therefore, we remember our past not to wallow in it, but to rejoice in the Lord’s abundant provision. And when we remember where we have been, it helps us stand in awe of where we are now by the grace of God.

Remember Where You Are (and who you are now)

We need something to eclipse our past. But that thing has to be big, or it won’t be able to eclipse whatever lies behind us.

Notice that doesn’t change the reality of our past; it is just a bigger reality than our past. What could eclipse our past? What could be so big that it makes a difference in how we see everything?

John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress recounts the story of a pilgrim named Christian. Christian had an unbearable burden—the crushing weight of sin and guilt. He could find no freedom from the weight of his sin. Until… Until he came upon a hill that had a cross at the top of it and a grave at the bottom. It was as Christian looked upon the cross that his unbearable burden fell off. It fell off and tumbled into the tomb, never to be seen again.

That was the crucial moment in Christian’s journey. His path wasn’t finished, but he was thenceforth new. The Bible teaches us that we are not what we have done or what has been done to us. In Christ, we are new; a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17).

We must fight to remember so we don’t forget. Zechariah chapter 3 tells us a pretty amazing story about Joshua the high priest. He was no doubt a man who sought to live a holy and righteous life and was a leader in the community as the high priest, yet Satan accused him (Zech. 3:1).

That’s actually what the word Satan means, accuser. And that’s what Satan does, he accuses. And he accused Zechariah.

But the LORD rebukes Satan. And the LORD says He has chosen His people, He has plucked them from the fire. And the LORD has Joshua’s filthy garments removed and clothes him with pure clothing (v. 4-5).

That’s what Jesus does. He takes away our sin and gives us clothes of His righteousness. So when we stand before the LORD and hear Satan’s accusations, all Satan’s accusations fall flat.

We can boldly go before the LORD because Jesus has provided a way for us. We are hidden and clothed in Christ (Col. 3:3). Therefore, because of the cleansing and clothing of Christ, we are not condemned, and we should not listen to the lies of Satan, the accuser.

We are God’s children, welcomed with Christ the King. So, we remember where we are: in Christ. And we remember who we are: new creations in Christ.

So, there is another sense in which we are to forget. We are to put the past in the past. We are to remember that in Christ, our sins have been cast into the depths of the sea (Micah 7:19). So, because God forgets our sins, we should too.

Remember Where You Are Going (and whose you are) 

Remembering who we are and whose we are helps us put the past in the past. We won’t ever be able to move past our past if we don’t let it stay in the past… Obvious. Yet, profound. The past is the past, so we don’t need to keep dredging it up unnecessarily.

Imagine being at a traffic light and it turns green. You are free to go. Move on. But you just stay there. You’re acting as if it’s red. You’re acting as if you’re stuck. But you’re free to go. But you don’t. You just stay there, stopped at the green light.

That’s what it’s like when we don’t move past the past. I don’t want to be insensitive because I know a lot of people have some really difficult things that they deal with from the past.

You might have been hurt by someone in the past, or you might have hurt someone in the past. You might have sinned against others or been sinned against. Likely, it’s a confusing mix of both. But we want to move forward and not becrushed by the weight of the past.

Remembering where we are going makes all the difference in the world. We see this in passages like Hebrews 11. When we know that we are “strangers and exiles on the earth” (v. 13) and we “desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one” (v. 16) we live differently.

When we look at the past, God’s transforming grace in Christ is there. Our sins are buried in the deepest, darkest, undivable ocean. They can’t be dredged up. When we look at our present, God’s transforming grace in Christ is there.We’re hidden in Christ. Our sin cannot be seen. We have Christ’s blanket of righteousness as our cover. When we look at the future, God’s transforming grace in Christ will be there. Our sins will be forever gone. We’ll have only a song of Christ’s transforming grace.

Our past paints a picture of our need for God. We use the lessons of our past to rely on God for our future. God has been good, and He will be good eternally, and with that truth in mind and by the empowering grace of the Spirit, we can and must move forward.

Thinking About the Past to Move Forward in the Future

• How has your family of origin or something in your past affected your relationship with God and your mental/emotional health?
• Whether it is in your conscience or in practical terms, what decisions have you made in the past that you are still suffering from?
• How does remembering who you are now in Christ encourage you?
• How does remembering the promise of the future help you deal with the hurts of the past?

Notes

[1] “Paul had a clear grasp of the scope of his sinful past, the lies that had fueled his sin, and exactly what he needed God to help him change. In other words, we cannot put the painful past behind us until we have fully grappled with it” (Steven R. Tracy, Mending the Soul: Understanding and Healing Abuse, 134).

[2] Dan B. Allender, The Wounded Heart, 202.

*Photo by Ray Kacaribu