Every experience you've hsd from the moment you were born until now (and even while you were in your mother's womb ) has made you what you're today. The things that happened to you , especially during your early years; determine how you'll act and react for the rest of your life.That's what Jesus meant when he said ,"A good man gives out good from the goodness stored in his heart; and bad man gives out evil which is stored in his heart"(Matthew 12:35), There are things stored up in each of us that must be dealt with before we can move ahead successfully. Psychologists estimate that we spend upto 50% of iur mental and emotional energy repressing painful memories. Two thousand years ago the apostle Paul wrote ,"Forgetting those things which are behind ,abd reach unto those things which are before. ............."Philippians 3:13).Paul understood that forgetting and reaching are the keys to inner healing.One will not work without the other. Forgetting closes the door on the past ; reaching opens the door of the future.
You say,"what did Paul have to forget? "Plenty! On his orders , Stephen, the first Christian martyr, was stoned to death and he watched the whole gruesome scene . Could you forget that? Listen to his testimony; ".........I persecuted the church of God and wasted it. (Galatians 1:13) KJV. 'Wasted'-that's a mafia term . Whiles Christians slept , Saul of Tarsus and his zealots would break down their doors and oblivious to the cries of children , take some parents to prison , and others to the chopping block. And now he goes back to those same towns to preach and when he stands in the pulpit, guess who's sitting in the pews? The widows ! The orphans! If Paul had not learnt to deal with the past, he'd never have written that.
