I will make your pinnacles of rubies, your gates of crystal, and all your walls of precious stones (Isaiah 54:12 NKJV).

Something my husband and I do in ministry if the Holy Spirit leads is to have people step over a line, signifying stepping out of the past and into the future. We can leave all the mistakes behind, we don’t have to carry them with us anymore. God is big enough to carry them, and he’s also big enough to fix those mistakes.

Sometimes when we step out of our past, there are situations, things and even people who try to cling to us. They are designed to pull us back into captivity. An addict, for instance, will need to choose new friends and leave his old buddies behind.

It could even be thinking on a problem, mulling it over in your mind. This one has been a big issue for me. God is still teaching me to keep my mind on his word, the answer, instead of on the problem. This is a process that takes time, but with the Lord’s help we can do it. It’s called renewing our mind, changing those old patterns of thinking that kept us attached to the past.

When you are stepping out of the past and into the future, there can be a time of transition. It can be lonely. The Lord is with you, even if it doesn’t feel like it. Stay close to him through the word, worship and prayer. If he is your only friend at times that’s ok. He’s the best friend you could ever have.

We are God’s children and he will never let us go (John 10:29).  We can place ourselves in his hands and ask him to do the work that needs to be done in us. For he who started this work will be faithful to complete it (Phil 1:6).

I had a teacher in college, when she taught my class she was in her late seventies. She told us she based her prayer on Jeremiah 18, which talks about God being the potter and us the clay. She said she asked the Lord to scrunch her back up and start over again, constantly being formed, constantly letting him pull things he didn’t want out of her, constantly surrendering herself to him and the work he wanted to do in her.

Are we asking the Lord to do the work he wants to do in us, or are we still holding on to what we want? Sometimes surrendering to the Lord leads us down a very different path than we would have picked ourselves, and oh it is so much greater!

© Carolyn Rice 2012