I Forgot Who I Was pt.5 I AM NOT MY PAST
So 2019 is winding down. We've got just under 3 weeks left in not just this year but in this decade. For me, it's significant because it means I've been on my own for almost 10 years. I graduated from high school in 2010. It makes 10 years that I know God has been dealing with me.
I'll be honest, I'm in a place where I've literally been pushed into ministry. I don't mean just armor bearing and singing on the praise team like I been doing. I mean ministry ministry. Granted, what I do on this ministry, but to me, it's not the same.
Because of where I live, I'm a little bit intimidated because I'm not like everybody else. I'm young, but I've had a very full life. I wasn't always saved. I partied HARD. I literally was a part-time resident of a club formerly known as Vizions. Every DJ knew me and my girls. Security knew us. The promoters knew me wayyyyyy before I was on the promotions team. Obviously, clubbing was not a one time thing for me.
Anyway, I talked to my aunt about how I was feeling about ministry. Yall know I talk to her about everything. Let's just say she got me all the way together. I think that was the Friday before Thanksgiving, and I had wrestled with it since a couple days before then. Just last Sunday, God said "stop hiding. I took you on a journey for a reason."
He took me to the story of Jacob. If yall remember, He took me to Jacob for the Transformation devotional. Lowkey, it's kind of the same message but it's different.
You ever do something so bad that you keep replaying it over and over in your head? Even if you try to put it in the back of your head, you still see it? I've been there a few times. I couldn't see myself pass my past. I believe that Jacob was the same way. If he wasn't, he wouldn't have reacted to hearing that Esau was coming the way he did. I am here to tell you that God says that you are not your past.
Genesis 32--https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=genesis+32&version=NLT
Here's the thing, we work so hard to push into a place of greater. You did the work because you believed that you could be better, but the moment you come into contact with anything the remotely reminds you of the past, you revert. It's a never-ending cycle...well at least it appears to be never-ending. It can end. That's why this is the part of this series. It's no point of realizing who you are if you keep going back to who you were. Too many times we do all this growing and we've forgotten who we've become because we constantly remind ourselves of who we used to be. That's why God had to have a conversation with Jacob
Isaiah 43 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=isaiah+43&version=NLT
God was like, "Look, I love you! I'm not worried about those mistakes, you are."
There's no way you can do the work God has called you to because you're too busy looking backwards. But, baby, you are not your past! You are not your mistakes. You are not where you come from!
Let's just be for real. God has a purpose for each and every one of us. Are there some people with a similar purpose? Yeah, but God called you to the purpose for a reason. Your purpose comes from your burden, your past, and your experiences. How are you going to operate in something above you when you see yourself as beneath where you really are? That's like a teacher thinking they are a student. It ain't gon work!
It's like you remember where you've been but you don't remember where you're going. To be honest, the issue is the people around you. The people around you play a role in who you are. You are a summation of the 5 closest people to you. If the people around you constantly remind you of what you've done or who you've been then there's no wonder why you can't let go of your past.
What do you do now? You kill the soul tie and cut it at the root. I just had to do this Sunday. When a certain person entered my life, I would change, and it wasn't for the better. He was half supporting me going into training. It was like he congratulated me for entering a new level but at the same time he was complaining any time I mentioned actually doing the work. He either complained or completely disregarded what I said and change the subject. Most of the time when he changed the subject, it would be something I had done in the 14 years that I've known him. If I be honest, the only reason I kept him around me is because he was someone who I thought knew me through my past.
Keep in mind I said, "I thought." The longer I thought about my interactions, the more I really began to question the purpose of him being there. We were very, very close from the time I was 13 until I graduated from high school. Why is this significant? Because when I graduated and went off to college, that when God started to move in my life. He had to kill off the old me.
So I started to grow and I got new friends. But when I fell, here he comes again and it was my fault. I invited him back into my life. Me and my crazy self. The longer I was around him, the more I was reliving traumas in my life to the point that I couldn't sleep at night. I found myself talking about the traumas like they just happened. Have you ever been around a child that will talk about things today like it happened today but it was really like a week ago? That's how some of us are. We'll experience pain and it's like our minds stay there. God says its time to grow up.
Stop focusing on what happened! I'll never forget when First Lady said, "Don't let what happened to you handle you." When you do that 2 things happen.
1. You forget who you are
2. You forget where you are
You are a new creation with a new focus. Do you have it all together? Absolutely not. But you're not where you were. Y'all know I live for reality TV, and Miss Cynthia Bailey's tag line gave me so much life. "I only look back to see how far I've come." You can't keep looking at the old and you've got a new focus.
I'll be honest, I'm in a place where I've literally been pushed into ministry. I don't mean just armor bearing and singing on the praise team like I been doing. I mean ministry ministry. Granted, what I do on this ministry, but to me, it's not the same.
Because of where I live, I'm a little bit intimidated because I'm not like everybody else. I'm young, but I've had a very full life. I wasn't always saved. I partied HARD. I literally was a part-time resident of a club formerly known as Vizions. Every DJ knew me and my girls. Security knew us. The promoters knew me wayyyyyy before I was on the promotions team. Obviously, clubbing was not a one time thing for me.
Anyway, I talked to my aunt about how I was feeling about ministry. Yall know I talk to her about everything. Let's just say she got me all the way together. I think that was the Friday before Thanksgiving, and I had wrestled with it since a couple days before then. Just last Sunday, God said "stop hiding. I took you on a journey for a reason."
He took me to the story of Jacob. If yall remember, He took me to Jacob for the Transformation devotional. Lowkey, it's kind of the same message but it's different.
Genesis 25:19-34 New Living Translation (NLT)
The Births of Esau and Jacob
19 This is the account of the family of Isaac, the son of Abraham. 20 When Isaac was forty years old, he married Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel the Aramean from Paddan-aram and the sister of Laban the Aramean.
21 Isaac pleaded with the Lord on behalf of his wife, because she was unable to have children. The Lord answered Isaac’s prayer, and Rebekah became pregnant with twins. 22 But the two children struggled with each other in her womb. So she went to ask the Lord about it. “Why is this happening to me?” she asked.
23 And the Lord told her, “The sons in your womb will become two nations. From the very beginning, the two nations will be rivals. One nation will be stronger than the other; and your older son will serve your younger son.”
24 And when the time came to give birth, Rebekah discovered that she did indeed have twins! 25 The first one was very red at birth and covered with thick hair like a fur coat. So they named him Esau.[a] 26 Then the other twin was born with his hand grasping Esau’s heel. So they named him Jacob.[b] Isaac was sixty years old when the twins were born.
Esau Sells His Birthright
27 As the boys grew up, Esau became a skillful hunter. He was an outdoorsman, but Jacob had a quiet temperament, preferring to stay at home. 28 Isaac loved Esau because he enjoyed eating the wild game Esau brought home, but Rebekah loved Jacob.
29 One day when Jacob was cooking some stew, Esau arrived home from the wilderness exhausted and hungry. 30 Esau said to Jacob, “I’m starved! Give me some of that red stew!” (This is how Esau got his other name, Edom, which means “red.”)
31 “All right,” Jacob replied, “but trade me your rights as the firstborn son.”
32 “Look, I’m dying of starvation!” said Esau. “What good is my birthright to me now?”
33 But Jacob said, “First you must swear that your birthright is mine.” So Esau swore an oath, thereby selling all his rights as the firstborn to his brother, Jacob.
34 Then Jacob gave Esau some bread and lentil stew. Esau ate the meal, then got up and left. He showed contempt for his rights as the firstborn.
So here we begin with Jacob. I'm not going to dwell on this too much. Long story short, Jacob messed up. To be honest, what he did was something you just have to take to the grave with you. If that were me, I don't know how i would deal with that. So I can only imagine what Jacob was going through. You ever do something so bad that you keep replaying it over and over in your head? Even if you try to put it in the back of your head, you still see it? I've been there a few times. I couldn't see myself pass my past. I believe that Jacob was the same way. If he wasn't, he wouldn't have reacted to hearing that Esau was coming the way he did. I am here to tell you that God says that you are not your past.
Genesis 32--https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=genesis+32&version=NLT
Here's the thing, we work so hard to push into a place of greater. You did the work because you believed that you could be better, but the moment you come into contact with anything the remotely reminds you of the past, you revert. It's a never-ending cycle...well at least it appears to be never-ending. It can end. That's why this is the part of this series. It's no point of realizing who you are if you keep going back to who you were. Too many times we do all this growing and we've forgotten who we've become because we constantly remind ourselves of who we used to be. That's why God had to have a conversation with Jacob
Isaiah 43 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=isaiah+43&version=NLT
God was like, "Look, I love you! I'm not worried about those mistakes, you are."
Luke 9:62 New Living Translation (NLT)
62 But Jesus told him, “Anyone who puts a hand to the plow and then looks back is not fit for the Kingdom of God.”
There's no way you can do the work God has called you to because you're too busy looking backwards. But, baby, you are not your past! You are not your mistakes. You are not where you come from!
Let's just be for real. God has a purpose for each and every one of us. Are there some people with a similar purpose? Yeah, but God called you to the purpose for a reason. Your purpose comes from your burden, your past, and your experiences. How are you going to operate in something above you when you see yourself as beneath where you really are? That's like a teacher thinking they are a student. It ain't gon work!
It's like you remember where you've been but you don't remember where you're going. To be honest, the issue is the people around you. The people around you play a role in who you are. You are a summation of the 5 closest people to you. If the people around you constantly remind you of what you've done or who you've been then there's no wonder why you can't let go of your past.
What do you do now? You kill the soul tie and cut it at the root. I just had to do this Sunday. When a certain person entered my life, I would change, and it wasn't for the better. He was half supporting me going into training. It was like he congratulated me for entering a new level but at the same time he was complaining any time I mentioned actually doing the work. He either complained or completely disregarded what I said and change the subject. Most of the time when he changed the subject, it would be something I had done in the 14 years that I've known him. If I be honest, the only reason I kept him around me is because he was someone who I thought knew me through my past.
Keep in mind I said, "I thought." The longer I thought about my interactions, the more I really began to question the purpose of him being there. We were very, very close from the time I was 13 until I graduated from high school. Why is this significant? Because when I graduated and went off to college, that when God started to move in my life. He had to kill off the old me.
Galatians 2:20 New Living Translation (NLT)
20 My old self has been crucified with Christ.[a] It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
So I started to grow and I got new friends. But when I fell, here he comes again and it was my fault. I invited him back into my life. Me and my crazy self. The longer I was around him, the more I was reliving traumas in my life to the point that I couldn't sleep at night. I found myself talking about the traumas like they just happened. Have you ever been around a child that will talk about things today like it happened today but it was really like a week ago? That's how some of us are. We'll experience pain and it's like our minds stay there. God says its time to grow up.
1 Corinthians 13:11 New Living Translation (NLT)
11 When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things.
Stop focusing on what happened! I'll never forget when First Lady said, "Don't let what happened to you handle you." When you do that 2 things happen.
1. You forget who you are
2. You forget where you are
2 Corinthians 5:17 New Living Translation (NLT)
17 This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!
You are a new creation with a new focus. Do you have it all together? Absolutely not. But you're not where you were. Y'all know I live for reality TV, and Miss Cynthia Bailey's tag line gave me so much life. "I only look back to see how far I've come." You can't keep looking at the old and you've got a new focus.
Philippians 3:12-16 New Living Translation (NLT)
Pressing toward the Goal
12 I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. 13 No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it,[a] but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.
15 Let all who are spiritually mature agree on these things. If you disagree on some point, I believe God will make it plain to you. 16 But we must hold on to the progress we have already made.
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