Thanksgiving?

Random thought for today - be forewarned, it's an odd one for the Thanksgiving season.

Here goes: The past is always painful. It is filled with regrets and wishes that you had treasured the moments more. Seems like even the best memories are tinged with some sort of pain. Like a line in a novel where you know things look good but something bad is lurking around the corner or the way you feel right after eating that third slice of pie.

Even in the story "A Christmas Carol", the ghost of Christmas past brings pain, bringing back memories that Scrooge would like to forget.

But the past is simply the past. A shadow of what has been and unless you let it, it has no hold on you. It is smoke and mirrors used by the enemy to try and stop you in your tracks...to keep you from moving forward.

I don't think I'm the only one who has ever thought of the past as painful. The Bible is filled with promises of the past being forgotten!

Philippians 3:12-14 New International Version (NIV)

12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

2 Corinthians 5:17 New International Version (NIV)17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!

Isaiah 43:18-19 Message

“Forget about what’s happened; don’t keep going over old history.
Be alert, be present. I’m about to do something brand-new.
    It’s bursting out! Don’t you see it? 

There it is! I’m making a road through the desert, rivers in the badlands.

I really like that one - the promise at the end!

And yet our past is what brings us to today. It is not to be relived but remembered with thanksgiving. God has brought us safe thus far and safe He'll lead us home. Even our failings have not kept God from His purpose in our lives. Many times the children of Israel were told to "remember" - but specifically it's WHAT they were to remember that is important. They were to remember all the times the Lord delivered them...in a way - delivered them from that painful past. 

Psalm 103:12-18 The Message (MSG)

6-18 God makes everything come out right;
    he puts victims back on their feet.
He showed Moses how he went about his work,
    opened up his plans to all Israel.
God is sheer mercy and grace;
    not easily angered, he’s rich in love.
He doesn’t endlessly nag and scold,
    nor hold grudges forever.
He doesn’t treat us as our sins deserve,
    nor pay us back in full for our wrongs.
As high as heaven is over the earth,
    so strong is his love to those who fear him.
And as far as sunrise is from sunset,
    he has separated us from our sins.
As parents feel for their children,
    God feels for those who fear him.
He knows us inside and out,
    keeps in mind that we’re made of mud.
Men and women don’t live very long;
    like wildflowers they spring up and blossom,
But a storm snuffs them out just as quickly,
    leaving nothing to show they were here.
God’s love, though, is ever and always,
    eternally present to all who fear him,
Making everything right for them and their children
    as they follow his Covenant ways and remember to do whatever he said.

So maybe this is an appropriate topic for Thanksgiving after all. Happy future everyone.