A WORD WITH YOU By Ron Hutchcraft #4486 - "The Joy of Facing Forward" Isaiah 43:18-19 Listen to the audio broadcast! http://www.gospelcom.net/cgi-bin/ramhurl?p=pnm&f=/rhm/sounds/awwy/awwy4486.rm Man, did our one-year-old granddaughter look happy! It was a milestone day. You know, ever since she started riding in a car with her parents, she has been in the back seat in her infant seat, facing backward - just like the safety folks recommend you should do. Well, her Mom and Dad travel a lot of miles, and she's seen a lot of country - after it's gone by. Oh, but not anymore! She crossed that magic threshold ... she weighs twenty pounds! By the way, I'm not surprised. I've seen this girl eat. She's definitely her father's daughter. But when you get to twenty pounds, you reach that great milestone: Mom and Dad turn your seat around and you get to see where you're going instead of where you've been. Well, I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Joy of Facing Forward." Our granddaughter is much happier looking forward than she was looking backward. You will be, too. Sadly, too many of us spend a whole lot of our life looking at where we've already been. You know, dwelling on the past, rehearsing those past hurts, and past slights, past injustices. And we can spend a lot of time looking backward - not just at things that have been done to us, but at things we've done. We keep rewinding those past failures, and past sins, and past mistakes. We can't seem to ever close the chapters that are already behind us. So, they're not over for us because, well, we keep dragging the past into our present and our future. Maybe our word for today from the Word of God is for you at this point of life - an encouragement to face the other direction - to trade in despair for hope. Isaiah 43:18-19 - God gets right to the bottom line: "Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland." Stop looking backward - focus on the road ahead God says. Why? Because the past can't be changed. So, focusing on what can't be changed can only lead to paralyzing self-pity and shame and bitterness, despair, and depression. Focusing on the past is a recipe for hopelessness. And God says, "If you keep dwelling on the past, you're going to miss the whole new thing I'm trying to do in your life!" This isn't living in denial - that means you've never faced the ugly things in the past, and frankly, there's no conquering them until you face them. But if you just keep dredging them up over and over, you're missing so much of what God wants to be doing in your life now. I want to encourage you, on behalf of the Lord of new beginnings, to make today the day that you choose to finally close that dark old chapter. That may require forgiving someone who wronged you - not because they deserve it, any more than you and I deserved Jesus' forgiveness. You'll do it because Jesus commanded us to follow His example and to release that person by forgiving them - leaving them to God to make it right, committing to treat them, not the way they treated you, but the way Jesus treated you. Closing the old chapter may mean claiming forgiveness for yourself, for the sins and failures you continue to replay. You stake everything on Jesus' promise - "I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more" (Hebrews 8:12). If you've been to Jesus' cross with the sin of your past, it is no longer an issue to the One who died for that sin. Who are you to keep unburying it over and over? You've been a slave to your past long enough. Let this be the day you claim a fresh new beginning from the Lord Jesus. Release all the darkness and pain of your past to the one who died to liberate you from it. And focus on all the new things God is birthing right in front of you. Just ask a little girl in a car seat that has faced both ways - you'll be a whole lot happier looking at what's ahead of you than what's already behind you! -------------------------------------------------------------------- Discuss today's "A Word With You," post your comments, or encourage others in our discussion forum! http://forums.gospelcom.net/view/rhm/awwy To find out how you can begin a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, please visit YOURS FOR LIFE: HOW TO HAVE LIFE'S MOST IMPORTANT RELATIONSHIP at: http://www.yoursforlife.net Or, call 1-888-NEED HIM. "A Word With You" by Ron Hutchcraft is a daily radio challenge, with slice-of-life illustrations and insights - providing practical help on the issues that matter most. If your local Christian radio station does not air "A Word With You," please let them know how much you value this program. Over six years of transcripts are available online, at http://www.gospelcom.net/rhm/awwy/ Ron Hutchcraft Ministries is a member of the Gospel Communications Network - http://www.gospelcom.net "A Word With You" is a production of: Ron Hutchcraft Ministries, Inc. http://www.gospelcom.net/rhm/ Email: RHM@... Copyright (c) 2004, Ron Hutchcraft. Permission to distribute this material via email, or individual copies, is automatically granted on the condition it will be used for non-commercial purposes, and will not be sold. To reproduce "A Word With You" transcripts in any other format, including Internet websites, written permission is needed from Ron Hutchcraft. Copyright (c) 2004, Ron Hutchcraft. Reprinted with permission. "A Word With You" is a radio outreach of Ron Hutchcraft Ministries, Inc. 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