Chained to the Past

Some memories are like chains. Fetters. Merciless shackles imprisoning us in the past.

I have a few chains of my own. My wrists and ankles have known the steely bite of manacles, the iron grip of memories that won't let go.

Sometimes old memories can't be stifled. Sometimes ancient wounds find their way into the present. Sometimes those fetters we tried to throw off start tugging on us again.

You have chains too, don't you? 

If I were to follow my chains into the past - to trace each metallic link to its origin - it would bring me back to high school. To a dark, stuffy office with mustard-colored carpet. To an adult I trusted and respected - who later misused my trust and stole my self-respect. To months of shame and loneliness and having no way out.

You know what else I would find at the end of my chain? I'd find the question that nagged me all those months. That haunted my thoughts late at night and refused to let me sleep.

Where is God, and why is He letting this happen to me?

I bet you could trace your chains back to a memory - a moment - that still haunts you today. And when you get to that moment - the one you'd rather just forget - you might even find the same painful question lurking in the shadows: Where was God, and why did He let this happen to me?

I spent years believing those aching, shaming months were some sort of cruel punishment. My young mind was troubled by how contradictory my situation seemed. God is good, and "in all things God works for the good of those who love him" (Romans 8:28). So why does a good God allow bad things to happen to those who are fervently trying to follow Him? Why did God seemingly abandon me in my time of need? I answered these questions in the only way my seventeen-year-old brain could fathom: I decided that I must have done something wrong. Those months of humiliation and loneliness must have been a punishment. 

Thank God, I was wrong.

Please don't misunderstand me. I believe that God disciplines His children for their good just as a loving parent disciplines a wayward child (Hebrews 12:10). We are a ragged bunch of sinful souls who rely on the love of a merciful God. To be very honest, we deserve all the punishment we get.

But I also believe that sometimes God allows bad things to happen to His children not because He is trying to punish them, but because He is proclaiming His work in their lives. 

Remember the story about Jesus healing a blind man (John 9:1-12)? As he was traveling with his disciples, Jesus came upon a man who had been blind from birth. The disciples wanted to know what caused the man's blindness: was it the sin of his parents or his own sin that forbade him to see? Notice the assumption embedded within the question; the disciples believed the man's blindness was the result of a past sin. To the disciples, blindness = punishment.

But Jesus had a different story to tell. In response to the disciples' question, Jesus said, "Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life" (John 9:3). Did you catch that? The disciples were wrong. This man was not blind because God wanted to punish him or his parents for past wrong-doing. No! This man was born blind so that the work of God could be displayed in his life.

Our hurts, our wounds, our trials can be a showcase for an Almighty God!

After answering the disciples' question, Jesus rubbed mud in the man's eyes and instructed him to wash in the Pool of Siloam. And you know what happened? "The man went and washed, and came home seeing" (John 9:7). After a lifetime of blindness - of missing the color, light, and shadow of the world around him - the blind man's sight was restored.

What do you do when you're healed? Rescued? When the chains are finally broken? When the wound is finally bandaged?

What do you do when the Lord delivers you from your past? 

Do you feel sorry for yourself and the pain you have endured? Do you get angry at God, wondering why it took Him so long to show up?

Or do you follow the lead of the blind man, and use it as an opportunity to showcase God's power in your life?

What if I lived like this? What if I chose to believe that the memory chaining me to the past - to the mustard-colored office and the wolf-in-sheep's-clothing - is not a punishment? What if I chose to believe that those months were not a sentence to shame and loneliness, but a showcase of God's work in my life?

Wouldn't the chains become a work of art? 

And wouldn't the scars become a badge of honor? 

The truth is, we can live like that. We serve a God who doesn't waste a wound.

We can leave the past behind us - just like the blind man left the Pool of Siloam.

We can rub the mud out of our eyes and see beauty where there was once ugliness, deliverance where there was once shame.

We can let God use our hurts, our wounds, our trials as a showcase of His power in our lives.