Maybe your life fell apart. The plan you built everything around didn't work out. Or maybe you made a choice you would give anything to take back.
Now you can't stop replaying it. You want to let go of the past and start over, but you don't know how.
Here is the good news: God wants to do a new thing in your life.
I preached a message from Isaiah 43 called "New Thing" when our church was stepping into a new season. The video below starts right where I talk about how to move on from the past.
Learn from your past, but don't live in it.
There is a reason why your rearview mirror is so small and your windshield is so big. When you are driving, you are meant to look forward most of the time. It is the same in life.
Imagine trying to drive on the freeway while only looking at your rearview mirror. How would that turn out? Not very well! You would hurt yourself and others.
Unfortunately, that is how many of us live our lives. We replay our mistakes and disappointments over and over again in our minds. But when you try to move forward while looking backward, you crash.
Now, I am not saying you should erase your past from your memory. There are times when it is important to look back so you can learn lessons from your past. However, I have found that we can often suffer from a paralysis that comes from an over-analysis of the past. We think about it so much that we can't move.
God wants you to learn from your past, but He does not want you to live in it.
God tells you not to dwell on the past.
Here is what God told His people through the prophet Isaiah:
"Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland." (Isaiah 43:18-19, NIV)
Notice the words "do not dwell." To dwell somewhere is to live there. The past is not where you are supposed to live, because God has a future ahead of you.
I want to be clear. Moving on from the past does not mean you dishonor it. You can be thankful for what was good, and you can learn from what was hard. You just can't stay there.
Let me be honest with you. Moving on is not easy. It is uncomfortable, because we are creatures of habit. We get used to the same places and the same people, and we get comfortable.
It is also easy to get sentimental about the past. We can make it look better than it really was, and because we are so attached to it, we won't let it go. But God does not want you to be driven by sentimental feelings. He wants you to be driven by faith in Him and in the future He is calling you to.
Change is always painful. So here is what you have to decide. Are you willing to go through the pain to get to the new, or will you stay where things feel familiar? For a lot of people, it is easier to stay on the comfortable couch of what's normal than to get up and move toward something new.
If you are still grieving what you lost, you may also want to read how to get to your next chapter.
God is doing a new thing, and He can make a way.
Look at the word God uses in that verse: "perceive." To perceive something is to notice it. God is doing something new, and He is asking if you see it.
My greatest fear for you is that you would miss it. You could let the new thing God is inviting you into pass you by and stay stuck in the past.
Then God says He is "making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland." Is a desert a likely place for a river? Not really. Maybe rebuilding your life feels impossible right now. In your own strength, it is. But God can make a way when it seems like there is no way.
That promise is why our church is called Arroyo. An arroyo is a river in the desert. In fact, the ESV translation of this verse says "rivers in the desert" (Isaiah 43:19, ESV). I believe God still makes rivers in the desert, and He can do it in your life too.
You can trust God with what comes next.
Stepping into something new will force you to live by faith. When you feel like you can control a situation, you are not trusting God. You are trusting yourself. But a new season comes with unknowns, and you won't understand all of it. God is asking you to trust Him anyway.
And you can trust Him, because He is trustworthy. If God did not have a track record of proving Himself faithful, I would understand your doubts. But He has proven Himself faithful time and time again.
Look at how God describes Himself just before He promises a new thing. He is the one "who made a way through the sea, a path through the mighty waters" (Isaiah 43:16, NIV). He is talking about the time He parted the Red Sea to rescue His people from Egypt's army. So when God promises "a way in the wilderness," it is not an empty promise. If He has done it before, don't you think He will do it again?
If His guidance and provision were with you a week ago, they will be with you a year from now. Where God guides, He always provides. That doesn't mean the new season will always be comfortable or easy. It means God is with you in it, and He is for you in it.
He has a great plan for your life! He has good works that He "prepared in advance" for you to do (Ephesians 2:10, NIV). Even more importantly, if you have placed your faith in Jesus, He has secured a home in heaven for you. That is the brightest future anyone could ever hope for.
What I have found in life is that you just take the first step of faith. Then you trust God to help you keep taking the next steps.
God does not hold your past against you.
Maybe part of what you keep replaying is something you did. I want you to know that God can forgive you for everything in your past. When you place your faith in Jesus, He does not hold your past against you. A few verses after God promises a new thing, He says this:
"I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more." (Isaiah 43:25, NIV)
To blot something out is to wipe it away. Your transgressions are the wrong things you have done. When God forgives you, He remembers your sins no more.
That is the good news of the gospel: you get to move on from your past. Sometimes going through the most painful things brings the most beautiful life, and that is what happened on the cross. Jesus went through the ultimate pain when He died for your sins, and from that came resurrection life!
The Bible says, "if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!" (2 Corinthians 5:17, NIV). That is a new beginning only Jesus can give. If guilt is what keeps pulling you backward, read why no sin is bigger than God's grace.
Today, you can stop letting your past weigh you down. Rest in God's forgiveness, and take one step toward the new thing He is doing.
Daily Practice: Read Isaiah 43:18-19 out loud. Then write down one thing from your past that you keep replaying, and one thing God may want you to learn from it. Pray something like this: "God, I will learn from this, but I will not live in it. Help me see the new thing You are doing."
If you are hurting and don't know where to start, reach out to us. We would love to pray for you. And if the weight of your past ever makes you feel like you can't go on, please call or text 988, the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, any time.