Letting go of the past is a challenge. Heard of the phrase ‘forgive and forget’? Sometimes it’s just not that easy. When you’ve been through hard times, when you’ve been hurt by others, you can hold on to what happened for a long time. When King Nebuchadnezzar threw Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego into the fire, God brought them out and ‘they didn’t even smell of smoke!’ We’ve all met people who still ‘smell like smoke.’ Or maybe it’s us that still smells like it. We’ve been in the fire of a hard or hurtful time, and we’ve come out carrying some of it with us. ‘I’ve been through a hard time, and I’m still upset about it.’ Sound familiar? Moving on from what happened to us can be hard. However, we make it harder for ourselves when we constantly talk about it, think negatively about the situation and stay in a ‘why me?’ attitude. All that does is chain us to the past. But with God there is freedom. If we choose to hand those memories over to God, the past doesn’t have to control our present or shape our future. We can ask Him to work in us to help us think positively about the past, to remember things we need to learn from experiences but not feel all the hurt that went along with it. He helps us to keep choosing forgiveness until we know we’ve fully forgiven people. God can, and will, give you freedom from the past and that smell of smoke will start to fade away.
What now?
Is there a painful memory you need to let go of? Get a cloth or handkerchief and spray it with perfume. Every day, spend time asking God to remove the hurtful part of the memory. As the scent gradually fades from the cloth, imagine God taking away a bit more of the pain, until it’s faded completely.