No Plans of Turning Back

This morning in church the pastor preached from 1 Kings 19:19, the calling of Elisha by Elijah. In the passage, when Elisha is called he burns his plow. The pastor explained that this signified that Elisha had no plans of turning back, there was only going forward. He talked about how the Greeks used to burn their bridges behind them in war #1 to make sure that the soldiers knew there was no turning back and #2 to make sure the enemy couldn’t sneak up behind them.

I sat in church and all of these thoughts flew through my head. The part that really caught my attention was when he said that some bridges are meant to be burned. He said it isn’t wrong to grow apart from people that bring us down.

I feel like I have all this baggage in my life that consists of all these old relationships I am still dragging around. The friendship ended a long time ago, but for some reason I’m still carrying it with me.

I think it’s because growing up I was taught to always be nice to everyone. I don’t think my parents were wrong by teaching me this, but I think there is time to move on and not look back. I shouldn’t have to let someone take advantage of me over and over. There are so many bridges in my life that I am terrified to burn because it wouldn’t be the polite thing to do, but honestly I think it would be the healthy thing for me to do. I always leave my relationships open to go back to, but I can’t keep doing that. Most of the relationships ended because one of us changed (or were never who the other person thought we were in the first place). Usually, it was me that changed. But I’m still nice to them and we still hang out every now and then. By leaving these relationships open I make it possible to go back to who I was and I don’t want that. I want it to only be possible to move forward.

Satan is a pretty crafty fellow and I definitely think he works through my past to get to me. He brings people back from my past to mess with my life now. I’ll finally be growing spiritually and then all of a sudden I’ll get a call from someone who brought me down in the past. Because I’m so “nice” I’ll hang out with them only to get dragged right back into the things that I already dealt with in my past.

My New Years’ resolution this year is to leave things from my past in the past. I have been called to be a new creation and dwelling in the past does not bring me any closer to who I am supposed to be. My decision to walk away from someone in the past was a decision I thoroughly thought through. I don’t just end relationships on a whim. I must have felt a conviction to be done with that phase of my life and there is no reason to walk back into whatever I left behind.