Words Of Encouragement To Start The Day ( Monday 3/8/10)

Today’s Devotional Is Written By The Newly Engaged: Tracy Koweh

Unplug Your Past,

and God will Connect You to Your Future

2 Peter 1:5-9 (New Living Translation)

⁵ In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God’s promises. Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge, ⁶ and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with godliness, ⁷ and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love for everyone. ⁸ The more you grow like this, the more productive and useful you will be in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. ⁹ But those who fail to develop in this way are shortsighted or blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their old sins.

Today's message in the music comes from Boyz II Men song, "Its So Hard to Say Good-bye to Yesterday". The last verse of the song says: And I'll take with me the memories. To be my sunshine after the rain. It's so hard to say goodbye to yesterday. I believe the reason that God has not connected us into our future, is because we won't unplug from our past

This past weekend was one I'll never forget. It started off quite strange, I woke up at three a.m. on Saturday morning with nothing to do and no where to be. The house was quiet and the Holy Spirit reminded me of a task that Shane had requested I do before taking that next step in our relationship. So I obediently went and sat at my computer and began to go through over seven thousand pictures on my computer since 2004.

As I went through folder after folder, I couldn't believe some of the memories I had been holding on to and dragging into each new relationship in my life. Not that I use to sit down and go through my folders; in an attempt to revisit memory lane, but the message that it sent to Shane and others was that I was still holding on to the past.. .......and therefore wasn't ready to truly move on into my future. The song says to use the memories to be the sunshine after the rain, but the problem is that we can't see the sunshine, because the memories are the rain.

This is so true in our spiritual lives. We are hanging on to things of this world, that are hindering us from truly being able to connect to God’s kingdom. Whether you’re holding on out of fear, familiarity, family, or failure, God can't connect you to anything better until you let go and trust Him. Are your actions, words, deeds and lifestyle portraying you as a Kingdom Connect or a Kingdom Reject.

Today begin to go through your spiritual files and folders and delete those memories that make you feel unworthy of love, unworthy of wholeness and respect. Today let God come in, clean you out and fill you back up with new memories. Don't be afraid to step out on faith and walk in your full healing.

When my project was over (four hours later), God said, "Empty the recycle bin". This was to make it a permanent deletion, never to be recovered (by me) again. Saturday morning God HAD ME clean out my past, and Saturday night He blessed me with a new beginning, a diamond and a proposal. Unplug yourself, and let God plug you into the destiny He purposed for you.