If we could change the past
Just go with me on this imaginary journey. We have all seen the movies where someone goes to their past and have the chance to do things over again, hoping that past mistakes could be rectified. I too have thought “what if I could change…….”. would it make a difference, better or worse? Thing is, what makes us, us now is the good bad and ugly past of our lives.
Also, if we went back to change the sins of our past, then it would change who we are now
First thing that pops into my brain is that the people we interact with that are dealing with their own issues would be affected. I thought about the people that I’ve had the privilege to speak with who were going down a road that I’ve been. People in general according to what I’ve seen, want to talk with someone who has the same scars as them. Not someone who can only empathize with them.
Thinking that if we just did something different, married different or career that it would give us peace or fulfillment, truth be known, no one thing, person, or change of situation can fill the hole in our soul that is, to steal a quote “fill the God shaped hole” that only God can accomplish.
We suffer from that today with trying to fill that hole with anything to ease the feeling of loss, or regret. We may even earnestly try to follow God and allow Him to heal us, mostly, but even then we have a tendency to try and fill in the gaps of what we think is missing with our own strength and abilities.
I’ve found that if we aren’t ok with God in complete control, then we still have a way to go in our growth. We all have a tendency to go back and rehash our memories of the past thinking that to change them would make things different in a good way. We have a sinful weakness in our DNA that can’t be fixed by our actions, but only God’s intervening in our lives to continually lift us up from the ground and guide us to the finish line. The inner strength isn’t in us as so many self-help books try to say, but it’s in the one that made us for a reason and a purpose. That purpose is to serve and worship Him. So. Changing the past would only serve to give us a different path of problems, issues and sinful desires to confess.
So, sure it would be cool to get to see how the timeline would have come out if we were able to tweak ourselves in the past, but the issue of our sinful nature would still be there when we arrived back in the present. Just like it is said, when we escape and go anywhere, we find that we are waiting there.
The solution is simple, not easy. Change course from this current reality and draw the proverbial line in the sand, making a choice that whatever is the issue separating you from our Creator, stops now. Jesus is that Creator and only choice that will not change your past but most assuredly our future. Choice.
Just a thought.