Are you dwelling in the past? Or are you present? (Or are you dwelling on your smartphone? Rude! 🙃)
The past is full of experiences good and bad that can drive future behavior. It can lead to bitterness or happiness and can color our actions and thoughts toward others if we are not fully consecrated to God’s will.
Trouble at the present can be because you are dwelling in the past. Satan loves to use past mistakes as examples of why we cannot succeed going forward. Philippians 3:14 tells us to press toward the mark. Don't look back!
Now that isn’t to say that past experiences can’t be leaned on as helpful and an opportunity for reflection based on current battles and situations. However it has been said, “As you Think you are.”
A buzzword as of late is the term confirmation bias or the tendency to interpret new evidence as confirmation of one's existing beliefs or theories. Satan loves to use this against us, just because someone else fell by the wayside doesn’t mean it needs to be us.
Perhaps you believe the “golden age” of God’s Church is behind us and your soul burden is lacking. You want to dwell in your past; you recall how it was when you were a child in the Church, or the “old paths” just aren’t the same. Be careful!
“Old Paths” are not defined by the oldest persons’ memories of how it should be done or how it was done - but rather how 2000 years ago these precepts and principles were set forth by Christ and the apostles. What we have taught in the past or held to is valuable for moral guidance only in the degree to which it conforms to God’s word.
Be on fire for God, there are souls in the balance and it might be you that God wants to use to reach these souls. Be present! The Here, is Now, there are others watching don’t dwell in yesterday, yes use it as strength for today and as Hebrews 12:1-2 instructs us to lay aside all the weights that so easily beset us, many times that is our tendency to dwell in the past. Be present!