Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 3:13-14

I have struggled with my past. I have struggled with things in my past. More than anything lately, I have been struggling with my grief over the past. I have struggled with things I cannot change. If I could, I would. It has taken a lot of prayer and thoughtfulness to understand I cannot change the past. I knew I couldn’t, but I prayed to God to at least take away the pain. He has helped me lessen the pain, but He has not removed it completely. Each day, sadness continues to overtake me. I think of my friend all the time. People have told me to just get over it. I feel resigned that will never happen; that I will always feel sadness when I remember his death.

But maybe one day I won’t feel sadness when I think of him, and what the world lost when he died so tragically. I love and trust my God, so when He says in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” I am trying to see things new again, to see a life forward without my best friend, my greatest confidant. It’s not an easy concept and it is not one that I really want to deal with, but deal with it, I must. Ephesians 4:22-23 is a very encouraging passage of scripture. It says, “You were taught to put away your former way of life, your old self…and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds.” In other words, I can overcome any negative situation or pain from my past if I will just believe in God and say, “Yes, this tragedy happened. But You are on my side and I know You have a good plan for me.”

In fact, with God’s help, I can do anything within His will for me. For example, God wants me to be healthy. So if you need to lose weight and you decide to go on a diet, when the hunger pains start coming, no matter how much your flesh is screaming, I can set your mind to not give in. And if my willpower can hold out, I will see results! I have done it before, and I can do it again. Well, that truth applies to every other area of my life.

I think a lot of us try to do things in our own strength without God. At first, I tried to get over my grief without God. I blamed him for allowing it to happen, but God didn’t kill my friend. God allows us to live our lives and whatever happened on that tragic night, it was not God’s doing. But in order to have the godly determination we need to get results, we need to come under the leadership of the Holy Spirit―and we need to have a vision.

The Israelites stayed in the wilderness forty years because they couldn’t see God’s vision for their life. They thought of everything in terms of their past. In fact, they complained to Moses that they wanted to go back to Egypt and return to a life of slavery because that’s what they knew. But God wanted them to get a new vision―a land flowing with milk and honey. Like the Israelites, I have prayed for things that no one should pray for, and God has answered those prayers.  Thankfully, his answer was no.  It is not my time to join him in everlasting life, for I have more things to do in this life.

If you want to see change happen in your life, you’ve got to get a vision that goes beyond what you’ve already seen and experienced. And a good place to start is the promises in God’s Word. There are thousands of them, and you can claim each one of them for yourself. In 1 Peter 5:6-7, Peter tells us, “Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you.” I have learned to humble myself before God and to beg him to forgive me for the blame I cast toward him. I am doing my best to cast my anxieties to God, so he can help me.

We need to learn how to encourage ourselves in the Word. That’s what David did in Psalm 27:13-14. Even in the midst of his troubles he said, “I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!”  The Lord God works in his own way in his own time. We must understand that and press forward knowing he will guide us.

Our hope should never be based on what we can see or what’s in our past. Our hope should be based on the Word of God and His promises for our life. Isaiah 43:18-19 says, “Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” God is always doing something new. I need to use my gift of spiritual discernment to follow His plan and stop following my own thoughts and feelings. I need to look at my circumstance and stare at Jesus.

Paul told the Hebrews in Hebrews 4:16 “Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” Do you know what? God will give us anything we can see as long as it’s biblical. If we will just stop thinking about everything we’ve lost, everything we’re not, everything we’ve given up, the way we’ve been treated in the past, and set our mind on His vision for our future, God will bring us to our Promised Land. But first, we have to leave the past behind.

When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, “It may be that Joseph will hate us and pay us back for all the evil that we did to him.”

So they sent a message to Joseph, saying, “Your father gave this command before he died, ‘Say to Joseph, Please forgive the transgression of your brothers and their sin, because they did evil to you.’ And now, please forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of your father.” 

Joseph wept when they spoke to him.

His brothers also came and fell down before him and said, “Behold, we are your servants.”

But Joseph said to them, “Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.  So do not fear; I will provide for you and your little ones.” Thus he comforted them and spoke kindly to them.

Genesis 50:15-21

We can learn so much from what Joseph tells his brothers in the passage above.  As members of the LGBT community, we often have people who “mean evil against us.” However, we must remember that God has a plan and a purpose for us.  We cannot lose faith, we must persevere as Joseph did.

If you are not familiar with the story of Joseph, here is a quick synopsis:

In the Old Testament, the son of the patriarch Jacob and his wife, Rachel. He was favored by his father, and his brothers became bitterly jealous when he was given a resplendent coat of many colors (literally, coat with flowing sleeves). They sold him into slavery in Egypt, telling Jacob he had been killed by a wild beast. In Egypt Joseph gained favor with the pharaoh and rose to high office, owing to his ability to interpret dreams, and his acquisition of grain supplies enabled Egypt to withstand a famine. When famine forced Jacob to send his sons to Egypt to buy grain, the family was reconciled with Joseph and settled there.

Joseph is unwilling to take vengeance where God has shown mercy. His own deep faith and his own experience of God’s grace move him to forgive the past and build for the future. Not only does he forgive, but he promise to provide for and protect his repentant brothers and their families.

And it is what God would have for us too. A faith that looks not to the hurts and the wrongs that others have caused us, but to the grace and mercy God shows even in the midst of such wrongs. A faith that stands gratefully in the place of God to receive God’s gifts and live a life of forgiveness through service! A faith that is able to see the Lord’s mercy and grace at work even through the most evil of circumstances and trust that God will turn evil to good for those who love and trust in Him.

The lawyer may says “Let justice be done though the world perish.” A theologian says “Let sin be forgiven and the world be saved, for justice is not done, but sin is always done.” If the great, sublime article called the forgiveness of sins is correctly understood, it makes one a genuine Christian and gives one eternal life. This is the very reason why it must be taught in Christendom without unflagging diligence and without ceasing, so that people may learn to understand it clearly, and discriminatingly. For to do so is the one, supreme, and most difficult task of Christians. To do so is to understand the place of God – the work of God – the promise of God.

We sin every day, and we are also sinned against every day.  When someone who has wronged us asks for our forgiveness, you and I have the unique privilege to reflect the love of God into their hearts and minds.  

“I forgive you.”  Sometimes I think that phrase is even harder to say than, “I’m sorry.”  But that little phrase is packed with Christian power.  It’s packed with the power of Jesus’ blood that washes away a lifetime of guilt.  It’s packed with the power of God’s Word that makes it as valid as if God himself announced his forgiveness with a thundering voice from heaven.  You know how much those words mean to you.  Let’s share those words with the people in our lives who need to learn how much it means for them!