Attached to a Garbage Bag

 I cleaned my desk today. It gets so cluttered with papers and junk, that by time I was done, I had a pretty big stack of papers that need to be shredded. After the shredding process was finished, I took a moment and looked at all the shredded papers and thought about how crazy it would be to try and put even one of those papers back together. I would have to be pretty desperate to take the time to do something like that! Those papers will never be the same. No matter how hard I tried or how careful I would be, things will never line up the same way again.


I couldn't help but think about how easy it is to let past hurts and failures play over in our minds. It's like taking shredded papers and trying to put them back together again. Somehow the failures get bigger and the hurts get distorted and before long, a once small mole hill is now a huge mountain. The Bible tells us exactly how to deal with the past.

Philippians 3:13-14 “Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”

I know that sometimes letting go of past hurts and failures is easier said than done. But for a child of God we are not alone when dealing with this. It's not about what we can do anyway. Philippians 4:13 “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” It really is all about His strength.

I can't imagine how much time it would take to put a shredded paper back together. I know it would have to be time I give on purpose, to this task. I guess my thought is this... deliberately spending time dwelling on past failures and hurts sounds a lot like a work of the devil and a waste of time. God’s way, according to Philippians 3:13-14 is so different. We have such a good and merciful God. He doesn't want us to drag a garbage bag full of the past around with us. He wants us to be able to run this race unencumbered!

Hebrews 12:1-3 “Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.”

It made me happy this morning to watch the garbage man take all those shredded, junk papers away. I'll never see them again. Unless... I follow the garbage truck all day and watch where he dumps everything at the end of the day. I guess I could dig through all the garbage and possibly find some shreds of my papers if I really wanted to.

I know it sounds crazy. But all too often…. that is what we do. There is nothing edifying or healthy about digging up past failures and hashing over hurtful things.  We don't have to live that way. The Bible tells us that our inward man can be renewed every day.

II Corinthians 4:16 “For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.”

Yesterday is gone and we are not promised tomorrow. We have today to happily live each moment for God.  I want to leave all the old garbage right where it belongs…..in the garbage can.

Keep pressing toward the mark.

Dianne