Enter His gates with thanksgiving; go into His courts with praise.
Give thanks to Him and praise His name.
Psalm 100:4
Recently, while sitting in my room, I began to do a reflection of my current life—the relationships I have, the job(s), the decisions that need to be made, and the character flaws that need fixing. I found myself wishing that I could go back in time and deal with the problems of previous times; you know the problems that I now know exactly how to deal with. In that moment I laughed at myself. Every season we enter has its benefits and its trials and seasons are constantly changing. What’s important to remember about each season of our lives is to “Enter His gates with thanksgiving; go into His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him and praise His name.”
I was informed that this devotional is the one year anniversary of the Seeking Him devotional blog. I’m actually very surprised…it doesn’t seem like a year has passed. Looking back, I can see how I’ve grown and changed. I can see things in me that are still the same that I would love to change but, overall, I’m moving forward. And I think this is what God wants us to do—move forward and be thankful while doing so. I find it difficult to move forward when I am regretting or disappointed about something in the past. When I address the situation and let God shed light on it, I find that I am more capable of thanking Him for the learning experience. Paul said it like this in Philippians 3:13 and 14,
But one thing I do, forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead.
I press toward the goal to win the prize
for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
We have so much going on around us and so much that we want to accomplish or to make different. We have lives we want to live and dreams we want to come to pass. If done correctly, the past is a good place for us to learn how to improve our present and our future. For this reason I feel we should be thankful to God that we have a past to say that we made it through. Without a past there is no present. Nobody’s past is perfect. There are things in my past that I don’t feel I should have ever had to deal with, but God says, “… if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17).
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Lord, thank You for where I have been, because I would not be the person I am today without my past. You are an all-knowing God and You guide my future. Thank You for being so amazing! Amen.
About Ahmee Bronaugh
Thank you, Ahmee, for this encouragement. Our pastors started a new sermon series, Make Me Brave. This Sunday our youth/young adult pastor talked about the different seasons in our lives, and those seasons require us to change if we are to grow in God. Paul was brave when he wrote to the Philippians that he would press toward the goal to win the prize God had planned for him. He was willing to change even when that change included some pain. I too want to be brave and look at the past to learn, and then be willing to change so I can become the person God wants me to be now and in the future.
Amen to your prayer.