I recently went into my wallet and found all these old receipts. Some were so old I couldn’t even read what was on the receipt and I couldn’t even remember what I bought. As I was going through the receipts I asked myself why am I carrying these old things around? Many of you are facing the same problem. Not that you have a wallet full of old receipts but that you are carrying around a lot of old stuff. This stuff gets stored in your emotions and your thoughts, it weighs you down and more importantly it takes up valuable space. Some of this stuff is so old you can’t even remember how it got there or what caused it in the first place. You are carrying around hurts, pains, disappointments, frustrations, broken relationships, past failures and all kinds of things that are weighing you down and taking up too much of your time, energy and your destiny. Not only can this sap your energy but it can kill your creativity, steal your enthusiasm and make you very unproductive. These things can become not only dream killers but life killers. So how do you deal with this?
First begin with repentance. David said in Psalm 51, “create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit within me.” Repentance is simply changing your direction. You were heading down this path, maybe away from God’s plan and you change and go in a completely different direction, towards God’s plan. God has more than enough love, grace and mercy to forgive any sins of your past, to heal any hurts and bring you complete restoration regardless of what you have done. Once you have done this and your heart is right with God from this point forward start traveling light. Don’t let sins linger. If you sin repent quickly so you don’t carry around guilt and remorse. If someone hurts you forgive them so you don’t carry around unforgiveness. If you fail, learn from it and try again so you don’t carry around fear and disappointment. In other words stop trying to live your life looking out of the rear view mirror. I think Paul said it best in Philippians 3 “…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.” It’s time to clean out your wallet, let go of the old stuff, that is taking up so much space and press towards the new and wonderful things God has in store for you.
