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If you’ve ever found yourself on the receiving end of an evangelistic sermon, you’ve most likely been told that God is “bigger than your past,” that “no matter what you’ve done,” God still loves you, still died for you, still saves you — saves you, we pastors often say, from your past. We tell you to “give your past to God,” and he will heal you. We preachers go into great detail about what you might have done — or, worse, what might have been done to you — only to bring you up on the other side by assuring you that God has mercy and forgiveness for everything that is behind. And it’s all true, sort of: God saves us from our past, transforming it, but it never goes away entirely. While forgiven of all that’s behind us, after a while we have this nagging feeling, what about what’s ahead?
Our church experience has taught us to kill (I suppose the biblical word is, unfortunately, “crucify”) our past — let God have it and let it die. But after the crucifixion of our past, we’re left unsure of what to do with our future. Well-meaning teachers tell us “God has a wonderful plan” for the future, that he “will make a way.” Many today speak of a “destiny” we have with God (whatever that means) and that better days are ahead — the best is yet to come. After we have given God our past, what do we do with our future?
