Every one of us has a mental hallway that represents our past with the pictures and images hanging on the walls. Generally, the pictures start at one end of the hallway and progress through your history to current events.

Often when you fall short at some endeavor, Satan wants you to recall all the similar pictures hanging on the walls of your mental hallway. He never forgets and wants you to never forget. He remembers every event in your past and wants to make sure you do as well. We can never (best I can tell) really get rid of the pictures on the walls of our hallway but, over time we can close the door to the pictures that fill us with defeat and remind us of our failures and hold us back from being who we were meant to be.

God on the other hand, doesn’t hold those past events against us. Not to put too fine a point on this, but if you ask him to forgive you of something, he does and remembers it no more. Picture in your spiritual mind, you stole a candy bar when you were a kid and asked God to forgive you. 20 years later, you bring up the candy bar experience in your prayer. Imagine God (I want you to get this) scratching his confused head because you are talking about something that he remembers no more.

I had a family member that remembered every little slight over their life and just could not let them go. She would recall something from her childhood, and you could see that she still felt the pain and hurt like it just happened yesterday. She carried them her whole life. We need to get over many of the pictures hanging on the wall of our mental hallways. You can’t change the past, but it can sure hold you back from your future. Let me say that again – You can’t change the past, but it can sure hold you back from your future.

The moral of this story is to forgive whoever wronged you, and most important, forgive yourself. While pictures are permanently hanging in our hallways of life, you can close the door and keep them from taking away great pictures in your future hallway. KT