SET YOUR PAST ON FIRE In 1977 my family’s home erupted in an electrical fire that consumed everything inside. While my mother lamented the loss of my brother’s trophies and promised him they could be fixed, I remember that my brother seemed strangely unmoved. The insight he left me with that day was that if those trophies are the highlights of our life, then our lives were not worth living, going forward. Why waste time and effort to reclaim the past when it would be much better for us to focus on creating the future? There are things and even people that you will have to leave behind if you are going to keep moving forward - anyone and anything that would keep you trapped in the past and would rob from you the future God has for you. Jesus clearly imparted to all of His disciples: You cannot follow me into the future if you are holding on to your past. Your past will be your future until you have the courage to create a new one. Take every memory that continues to wound you, take all of the pain, all of the regret, take all of the bitterness and disappointment, take all the moments of betrayal and every failure out of your heart and put them in the fire. Keep in mind that this is not an invitation for destructive behavior; don’t burn relational bridges or operate under a scorched-earth strategy. Try to make sure you do the right thing in the right way; appreciate the past, but live in the present and for the future. The journey into our best future always passes through the furnace. The fire both forges us to who we must become and frees us to live the life for which we were created. What has a negative hold on your life that you need to leave in your past to create your future? Identify three strongholds over your decisions, behaviors, and relationships that you need to ‘burn’ to move forward into the life Jesus is calling you to live.