Sometimes I pick up a book….and I feel so relieved. When I was in Israel and Egypt I still had “problems” bugging me. I opened pages to this book and WHAM I just felt…. relieved. I read this:

I take no credit for the text written above. Only parts of the text have been published on Soulistic.org – all content below is owned by Omartian and Harvest House Publishers.

The Power of a Praying Woman – by – Stormie Omartian. Chapter Twenty-Nine: Lord, Lift me out of My Past. (p.324-326) ISBN 1-4104-0144-8

Imagine that you are running in a race and you’re trying to reach the goal and ultimately win the prize. But, as hard as you try you can never get to the finish line because there is a heavy weight tied around one of your legs. You struggle to pull it along, but it slows you down and causes you to be so weary and exhausted that you are tempted to give up altogether. It doesn’t occur to you that this is something you don’t have to carry. I that been so much a part of you for so long that you never imagined life without it. Yet you can’t finish the race and secure the prize God has for you until you become free of it.

This scenario is true for so many of us. We are trying to run the race of life, but we are having trouble getting up to speed. That’s because we’ve been carrying excess baggage from the past around with us without even realizing it. In fact, we’ve carried it around with us for so long we think it’s part of us. Some days are so hard we feel like giving up and getting out of the race. But I have good news. God wants to take that burden from news. God wants to take that burden from you so you will never have to carry it again.

Whether it’s something that happened as long ago as your early childhood or as recently as yesterday, the past can keep you from moving into all God has for you. That’s why He warts to set you free form it. And not only that, He wants to redeem and restore what has been lost or destroyed in your past and make it count for something important in your life now. The truth is, you can never move into the future God has for you if you care continually stuck in the past. When you received Jesus you became a new creation. He made all things new in your life, and He wants you to live like it.

God says to forget the former things, but that’s not easy to do. How do we forget what happened to us? Do we need to have amnesia? Or a frontal lobotomy? Must we live in denial? Do we have to pretend that the past did not happen? Should we have part of our brain lip suctioned? The answer is no to all of the above. We have to pray that God will set us free form the past so we can live successfully in the present,

One of the great mysteries of the Lord is how He can take the horrible, the tragic, the painful, the devastating, the embarrassing, and the ruinous experience and memories of our lives and not only heal them, but use them for good. It’s not that He will make you unable to recall them, but He will heal you so thoroughly from their effects that you no long think about them with any pain. He will give you a new life you enjoy so much you don’t want to travel back in your mind to the old one. You will still have the memory, but you no longer have the pain. Instead, you will have praise in your heart for the way God has restored you to wholeness. And you will want to share your experience with others so that they can know this kind of deliverance, restoration, and healing is there for them too. [...]               Don’t Look Back : Once you step out of the past it’s important you don’t keep looking over your shoulder to see if it’s following you. That’s what Lot’s wife did, and it paralyzed her. It will paralyzed you too. And it will definitely slow you down in the race. Good runners look forward and keep focused on the goal.

Even if you have never had one bad thing happen to you in your life, or you have been completely delivered from every negative memory you have had, you still need to pray to be free of your past. That’s because even the good things of your past can keep you from allowing God to do a new thing now. If we get locked into what we did before, we may miss what God wants to do now. God is always wanting to take you to a new place in your life, and you will keep Him from doing that if you are hanging onto the way things have always been done. He will never allow us to rest on past success. If we rely on the way things have always been done, we aren’t relying on Him. And that’s the whole point.

I guarantee that no matter how hold you are, God has something new He wants to do in your life. Ask Him to show you what that is. tell Him you intend to stay in the race and you don’t want to carry any baggage from the past around with you. Tell Him you want to run in such a way that you will obtain the prize (1 Corinthians 9:24). — Written by: Stormie Omartian.

I take no credit for the text written above. Only parts of the text have been published on Soulistic.org – all content above is owned by Omartian and Harvest House Publishers.

Love,

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