Forget the Past, Live a life of Purpose!

Many of us struggle with unpleasant memories. The hardest memories are the ones that caused hurt, pain, sorrow or regret. How do we get over the things we've done in the past, or the things others have done to us? How do you begin to heal from deep emotional distress that placed an unwanted imprint in your mind?

The first thing you must know, which is something I've recently learned, is that we have a choice in what thoughts/memories we allow to reside in our brains. No, I'm not saying that we can erase a memory (I wish!), what I'm saying is that if an unpleasant memory or thought comes into our minds, we can choose to reject it immediately, or allow it to take its residence in our minds and spirit!

So let's say that a painful memory comes into your mind, you can say to yourself, "I will not dwell on this, it's no longer a part of my life", and you can replace that thought with a positive one. Dr. Leaf, who holds a Masters degree and Phd in Communication Pathology said the following about controlling your thoughts:

"There is a point in your brain called the “free will” and it is a genetic structure, there is genetic code. You can use that free will to accept or reject that incoming information. So if you are controlling your thought life, you don’t have to just receive all of this input that is coming in from the outside world, from the media, from external and also from your internal world; we’ve got a lot of existing toxic memories in our head, everything from birth to death is stored in your brain. So you’re going to have information coming from the outside, information from the inside and it all meets at this point of the free will in the brain. You can make a decision at that point to accept or reject that information. If you decide this is not good for me and you actually analyze that thought and say, this is not good for me, this is not healthy. You can reject that thought and it goes out and becomes heat energy. It actually becomes hot air and it doesn’t become part of you. But if you choose to think about it, if you choose to meditate on that, if you choose to ask, answer, discuss, analyze to give meaning, you push it into these memory trees of the mind, into the memory circuits and once they’re there, they are there for good. Once they’ve moved into what the neuro-scientists call the magic trees of the mind, once they’re there, they’re there for good, you can’t get rid of them. Then you’ve got to rebuild, that’s the renewing of the mind. Much more difficult to rebuild than it is to reject."
~ Dr. Caroline Leaf 

What profound information isn't it? And it should give us a different perspective on the way we think. Christians, we DO have a choice in what we allow to control our lives. We DO have a choice in what kind of person we will become! Your past does not determine your future, but your mind does! Romans 12:2 tells us, "And be not conformed to this world: but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God." 

This renewing of the mind starts with first making Jesus Lord of your life. Then you can start taking control of what you allow your mind and spirit to yield to. 2 Corinthians 10:5 says, "We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." 

Christians, we need to take those negative thoughts captive as soon as they creep in and make them obedient to Christ! Every thought that goes against God's word, or that we know is not God's will for our lives, we need to take it captive and rebuke it in the name of Jesus! 

Remember: You don't have to be what you always were. Think about who you want to be, because that's who you should be! God bless you.

"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.  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, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 3:12-14)