The idea really hits me close, having struggled with becoming comfortable with myself and who God made me to be. See, I, like everybody else have struggled in my past. Nobody was ever born the way they were meant to become - As I've said before, every moment in your life is a journey leading you to who you will become. Every day we are confronted with minor choices that help to shape ourselves. When we align ourselves and our thinking with Christ, we draw closer to him and become the people we were meant to be.
The culmination of these choices, as they define who we become, build up in our past to fill out the story of our walk with him. Often times, through the living of our lives, we make mistakes - little "glitches" in our lives that torment us as we try to walk with Christ later. I've seen this personally in my own life as I've grown and become closer to Christ. It's a troubling and scary thing when your past comes up and haunts you, and it's one of the devil's strongest weapons against us as Christians - the simple memories of things we've done break us down and make tiny holes for the devil to whisper how unworthy we are of the grace we have in Christ and how we will never be what we were made for. It's one of the biggest lies the devil has on Christians.
Two years ago, I started playing an online game. What started as a simple recreational activity quickly grew into an overwhelming addiction that consumed every minute of my time. I avoided all responsibility, friends, family, and church in an effort to play a game that steadily wore down who I was and warped my ideas of happiness. I looked at a game that allowed me to be whoever I wanted to be, do whatever I wanted to do, and look however I wanted and found happiness in it. I gave the devil such a tiny little crack in my shield and he used it to destroy who I was. The deeper I got into the game, the more I hated who I was when I wasn't playing. Here I was this great, well known, likeable person in game and when I left I was just Kyle, the mediocre guy who would never amount to anything. I looked at myself in the mirror and loathed what I saw looking back at me.
The devil used this and abused it until it got to the point that one day I bought a sword and went home with full intention of ending my life. I felt, in that moment that I was a failure - a mistake that should never have existed. I looked at my life and who I was and saw nothing but my own mistakes and flaws. I looked into my past and saw only the hurts, pains, and frustration that the devil showed me. I took what God made and formed Himself and demeaned it until it meant precisely nothing.
God had a much larger plan for me, though. See, on the way home from the store I bought my sword at, for some reason, I missed the turn to go to my house and ended up driving the long way - right past my church. Seeing my sisters's car in the parking lot, I stopped and decided to go in. We talked for a short while, and while she had no idea what was going on, she ministered to me in a way that can only come from God. She could tell that I had changed and something was very wrong with what I had changed into, but she had no idea my situation. Before we went our separate ways, she gave me a verse - Ephesians 5:14, which says "This is why it is said: "Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you." That verse is the reason I'm alive today. See, what she didn't realize is that whenever I felt super depressed, I listened to a song titled "Asleep."
That night, when I had a sword pressed against my stomach, the verse she gave me kept me from ending my own life. Had God not intervened in such a powerful way, I wouldn't be here to write this blog.
See, what people don't always see is that God doesn't judge you for who you were. It's not about what you've done with your past, and it doesn't matter all the mistakes you've made. God can take you, the flawed, imperfect creature you were made as, and use you for a purpose you cannot even understand. Even Paul, one of the most influential writers of the New Testament KILLED CHRISTIANS for a living. Talk about regrets! The focus of God, and subsequently what should be our focus is not WHO you are... rather WHOSE you are, and subsequently who GOD wants you to be. God can use your story, no matter how nasty and messed up it may be, to glorify His kingdom.
See, even as scary as my past got, God still used it. Months later I got a text at work from an old friend of mine who found himself on a bridge ready to jump and end his life. God blessed me with the opportunity to use my story to save someone else's life. There is no greater feeling than the knowledge that Christ used you in a powerful way.
Today, as you go about your day, I would encourage you to focus on where your thoughts go. Put away your past and keep it for later. In the right hands, at the right time, your past can be the instrument God uses to move mountains.
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