I have my selection of much loved books. But Joel Osteen’s Your Best Life Now is now my record-favorite. The book’s chapter 17, overwhelmed me with good sense. Though I now know myself extensively been mended as I get to beam on all my mistakes at the present, I can’t help but be taken back to remember-all lane and still be stirred by the words spoken in the book.
We live in a society that loves to make excuses, and one of our favorite phrases is: “It’s not my fault.”
“Joel, I’m a negative person because I was raised in an unhealthy family environment,” one man told me.
“My husband walked out on me. I’ve been rejected. That’s why I’m always so depressed,” said a woman in her early forties.
“I’ve lost my wife, and I just don’t understand it. That’s why I’m so angry,” said another young man.
No, the truth is, if we are bitter and resentful, it’s because we are allowing ourselves to remain that way. We’ve all had negative things happen to us. If you look hard enough, you can easily find reasons to have a chip on your shoulder. Anyone can make excuses and blame the past for his or her bad attitudes, poor choices, or hot temper.
You may have valid reasons for feeling the way you do. You may have gone through things that nobody deserves to experience in life. Perhaps you were physically, verbally, sexually, or emotionally abused. Maybe you’ve struggled to deal with a chronic illness or some other irreparable physical problem. Perhaps somebody took advantage of you in business and you lost your shirt, as well as your self-esteem. I don’t mean to minimize those sad experiences, but if you want to live in victory, you cannot use past emotional wounds as an excuse for making poor choices today. You dare not use your past as an excuse for your current bad attitude, or as a rationalization for your unwillingness to forgive somebody. The fourth step toward living your best life now is to let go of the past.
It's time to allow emotional wounds to heal, to let go of your excuses and stop feeling sorry for yourself. It’s time to get rid of your victim mentality.
Nobody – not even God – ever promised that life would be fair. Quit comparing your life to somebody else’s, and quit dwelling on what could have been, should have been, or might have been. Quit asking questions such as, “Why this?” or “Why that?” or “Why me?”
Instead, take what God has given you and make the most of it. You may have suffered much, endured great hardships, or been through a lot of negative things. You may have deep scars from emotional wounds, but don’t let your past determine your future. You can’t do anything about what’s happened to you, but you can choose how you will face what’s in front of you. Don’t hold on to feelings of bitterness and resentment and let them poison your future. Let go of those hurts and pains. Forgive the people who did you wrong. Forgive yourself for the mistakes you have made.
You may even need to forgive God. Perhaps you’ve been blaming Him for taking one of your loved ones. Maybe you are angry at God because He didn’t answer your prayers, or some situation didn’t work out the way you had hoped. Regardless, you will never be truly happy as long as you harbor bitterness in your heart. You will wallow in self pity, always feeling sorry for yourself, thinking that life hasn’t dealt you a fair hand. You must let go of those negative attitudes and the accompanying anger. Change the channel and start focusing on the goodness of God.
You probably know some people who thrive on self-pity. They relish the attention that it brings them. They’ve lived that way for so long, self-pity has become part of their identity. He or she is known as the person that went through some great struggle, some horrible experience, the person who had something really awful happen to him or her. Certainly, when someone undergoes a traumatic experience, that person should be treated with compassion and care for as long as it takes to regain health and strength and get back on his feet. But the truth is, some people don’t really want to get well. They like the attention too much.
Fifteen years ago, Phil and Judy’s only son was killed in a freak accident at work. It was one of those senseless, unexplainable accidents for which there are no words of comfort. Family and friends hovered over the couple for several months, empathizing with them in their grief and attempting to nurture them back to a degree of normalcy.
Regardless of their comforters’ sensitive efforts, Phil and Judy refused to let go of their grief. Whenever their son’s name was mentioned, their eyes welled with tears and their woeful mourning began all over again. Slowly but surely, the comforters quit coming. People stopped calling. Family members avoided visiting.
Anytime an encourager bravely attempted to life the couple’s spirits, their efforts were met with sullen faces and a barrage of insults.
“You just don’t know what it is like to lose your son,” Phil objected.
“No, but God does,” somebody would tell them.
But Phil and Judy remained untouched. In their minds, nobody had ever felt pain the way they had. No consolation seemed adequate to their needs. They were forever to be known as the couple who tragically lost their son. Consequently, fifteen years after the fact, Phil and July continue to languish in self-pity and self-induced isolation. Why? Because they don’t want to get well.
Too often we keep reliving the painful memories of the past, negating God’s desire to bring healing. Just as we are about to heal, we start talking about our painful experience again. We bring it up to our friends. We start reliving it, seeing it in our imagination. All of a sudden, we can feel those same emotions all over again, as though we were tearing open the old wound. It will never properly heal until we learn to leave it alone. Remember, your emotions follow your thoughts. When you dwell on painful experiences in your past, your emotions go right back there with you, and you feel the pain in the present. You can relive something in your mind and feel it today just as vividly as when it happened twenty years ago.
One day a few years after my father passed away in 1999, I was over at my parents’ home, and I was all alone in the house. I hadn’t been there by myself in quite some time, and as I was walking through the den, for no apparent reason I started thinking about the night that my dad died. Daddy had a heart attack right there in that same room. In my imagination, I could see it all happening. I could see Daddy on the floor. I could see the paramedics working on him. I could see the look on my dad’s face and I began to feel those same emotions of despair, sadness, and discouragement that I had known the night Daddy died.
For about fifteen or twenty seconds I stood there paralyzed, overwhelmed by my emotions. Finally, I caught myself, and thought, What am I doing? Where is my mind going? Where are these emotions taking me?
I had to make a decision that I was not going to allow myself to relive that night. I knew that it wasn’t going to do me any good. It would only get me upset and discouraged. Rather than dwelling on the hurt from the past, I had to purposely start recalling all the good times that my dad and I had known in that den. I smiled as I remembered how we used to watch the TV show Wheel of Fortune together in that room. Daddy could always guess the puzzle long before the contestants. In my mind, I could see Daddy playing with our children in that den. He loved having children around, and they loved being with him.
I recalled how sometimes I’d walk in the den and Daddy would be in his favorite chair. He’d look up and say, “Joel, tell me all you know. It’ll just take a second.” Daddy thought he was really funny. And he was. He had a great sense of humor.
As I stood in that den, I had to willfully refuse to allow my mind to go back to painful memories of Daddy’s death, and instead recall joyful moments from Daddy’s life. But notice, it didn’t happen naturally; it was a decision I had to make.
(fast forward . ..)
In the Bible we find an interesting account of when King David’s baby was dreadfully sick, near death. David was extremely distraught; he prayed night and day, believing that God could heal his child. He wouldn’t eat or drink; he didn’t shave or shower. He didn’t attend to any business. He wouldn’t do anything but pray, crying out to God.
Despite David’s passionate prayers, on the seventh day the child died. David’s servants worried how they were going to tell the king that his baby was dead. They thought he would be so devastated, so distraught that he couldn’t handle it. But when David finally figured out what had happened, he surprised them all. He got up off the floor. He washed his face and put on some fresh clothes. Then he asked his servants to bring him food, and he sat down and ate a meal.
His servants were flabbergasted. They said, “David, when your child was alive, you fasted and prayed. But now that he’s gone, you act as though nothing’s wrong.”
David answered, “Yes, I fasted and prayed when my son was sick, thinking that God might heal him. But now that he is gone, I cannot bring him back. He will not return to me, but I will go to be with him.” Notice David’s attitude. He didn’t get bitter. He didn’t question God. He could have snarled, “God, I thought you loved me. Why didn’t You answer my prayers?”
David didn’t do that. He dared to trust God in the midst of his disappointment. He washed his face and moved on with his life.
Friend, you and I have to learn to do the same thing. People may have mistreated you. Somebody may have walked out on you, or maybe you prayed fervently, yet God didn’t answer your prayer the way you had anticipated. That’s over and done. You cannot change the past; there’s nothing you can do about it now. But you must make a decision. Are you going to sit around by the pool for thirty-eight years, or are you going to get up and get moving with your life? Are you going to keep going back to file number two, reliving all those painful memories, or are you going to stay in attitude of faith? God is asking, “Do you really want to get well?”
If you do, you must walk out of any emotional bondage in which you have been living. Nobody can do it for you. You must rise up out of those ashes. You must forgive the people who have hurt you. You have to release all those hurts and pains. Leave the past behind. When you go through situations you don’t understand, don’t become bitter. Don’t question God. Learn to do as David did: Just wash your face, keep a good attitude, and move on. Get ready for the new things God has in store for you.
If you will stay in an attitude of faith and victory, God has promised that He will turn those emotional wounds around. He’ll use them to your advantage, and you will come out better than you would have had they not happened to you.
The underlined phrase shaped me the most.
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