Morning Discipline – Letting Go of the Past

Good morning!

It is a new week and a new day and I’m so glad you could join me as we continue our journey toward renewing our minds and improving our self-discipline. If you’re just joining me, you can read my article, “Morning and Evening: A New Self Discipline Journey” to learn more about why I am doing this, and how this may benefit you as well.

This week we are going to focus each day on reflection. Each day this week I will provide affirmations, scriptures, and daily challenges regarding this topic. Next week will be a new one!

With that said, let’s start our morning together!

BREATHING EXERCISE

Before we begin let us take some deep breaths to calm our mind and prepare us for this mornings discipline.

MUSIC FOR A NEW DAY

I personally like to have some soft music in the background, so if that’s something you like as well below you will find a song you can play for the duration of our time together.

PRAYER For Letting Go of the Past

Now that we’re calm, let us transition to a time of prayer. Over the next few minutes you can pray on your own or feel free to use the following prayer:

Lord,

I kneel before You in humble submission and pray that in Your mercy and kindness You would help me to simply let go of all the fears and worries, problems and doubts, guilt and disappointments that seem to be filling my heart and mind so often, during the course of a day.

Fill my hurting soul with Your love and peace I pray. Fill the emptiness and pain that is tearing my life asunder. Lord, You know what is in my heart and why I am going through this time of fear and worry. Help me Lord, to take every thought captive, to hand it over to You as it rears up in my mind, and help me to replace it with thoughts and words of Scripture that tell of Your great might and wonderful power.

Lord, You have told us to think about whatever is lovely and pure and holy and good, and I pray that You would help me to turn the eyes of my heart upon Jesus and look to Him day by day.

In Jesus’ name I pray,

Amen

Prayer to Let Go of the Past | www.xavier.edu

A Poem For Letting Go

I want to add something unique today. That something is a poem. Poetry isn’t for everyone and that’s ok. I may or may not do this every time, but today I feel like adding some poetry in to the mix. So I hope you do not mind.

Today’s poem is titled “Lightening the Load” by Francis Dorff, O. Praem.

The first thing we have to do
is to notice
that we’ve loaded down this camel
with so much baggage
we’ll never get through the desert alive
Something has to go.

Then we can begin to dump
the thousand things
we’ve brought along
until even the camel has to go
and we’re walking barefoot
on the desert sand.

There’s no telling what will happen then.
But I’ve heard that someone,
walking in this way,
has seen a burning bush.

lightening the load by francis dorff, o. praem.

AFFIRMATIONS for Letting Go of the Past

Here are a few affirmations for this morning that you can put in your pocket and carry with you throughout your day.

As you read through them, repeat each one out loud at least three times before moving to the next. Take your time. Close your eyes and say them to yourself as well. Let these words sink into your heart and mind this morning:

1. I am leaving the past in the PAST.
2. I welcome change with open arms.
3. I am happy to be free of the problems of the past and I welcome new experiences.
4. The past does not define who I am today or who I will be tomorrow.

SCRIPTURES For Letting Go of the Past

As Christians, our affirmations should be rooted in the strength and power of God who empowers us and strengthens us to face every trial and every day (both good and bad).

Here are some scriptures that further support the affirmations we just spoke to ourselves. Again, repeat each one three times out loud before moving to the next one. Take your time. Maybe try to commit these to memory as well:

1. 1 Peter 5:7, “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.”
2. Proverbs 4:25-27, “Let your eyes look straight ahead; fix your gaze directly before you. Give careful thought to the paths for your feet and be steadfast in all your ways. Do not turn to the right or the left; keep your foot from evil.”
3. Philippians 4:13-14, “Brothers, I do not consider mysself to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead, I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus.”
4. Matthew 11:28-30, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke on you and learn from me, because I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and my load is not hard to carry.”

TODAY’S CHALLENGE

Our challenge today is this: reflect on your past and identify what needs to be let go, then let go of it.

Few things in life are as hard as confronting our past hurts and disappointments and then letting them go. But, in order to move forward in life and be present in the present, we need to find a way to do just this.

Everyone of us, to some degree or another, have spent the years of our lives picking up hurts and disappointments like large rocks and placing them in a bag to carry around on our back. With each hurt a new rock is added to our bag. With each disappointment another rock. Until one day we find we are being crushed under the load of hurts and disappointments.

For many of us we try to pick the bag up and keep going.

We may even drag it along behind us because it’s become too heavy to lift up on to our backs.

Why do we do this to ourselves?

Unlike the practice of lifting weights at a gym where the result is larger muscles and a more toned body, the practice of holding on to past hurts and disappointments is more like placing that massive bag of rocks we’ve been collecting on our back and then trying to swim across the English Channel or Atlantic Ocean.

We’re drowning.

The challenge today is, no doubt, a hard one. Maybe harder for some than others. But if you’re tired of drowning, today is the day to confront those hurts and disappointments and let go of the bag.

I endured a number of years in a toxic environment. It was supposed to be a place of spiritual refuge and also one of my jobs that I got paid for. But it wasn’t a safe place. Far from it. Instead, it became a large bag of rocks that I was trying to manage while swimming the ocean. I personally had to go through 9 months of counseling with my wife, as well as numerous conversations with various people close to the situation to find freedom and get to a place where I felt I could finally let the bag go.

Maybe that’s you.

Maybe you’ve been putting off letting go of the bag because it’s too hard to do on your own. If that is you, then I want to encourage you to find the help you need. Get counseling. Go to the doctor. Have the hard conversations.

Let me just say, no amount of hurt or disappointment is worth holding on to while the years of your life are being stripped away, and the moments you could be enjoying in the present are being missed because of the crushing load you carry. The money a counselor or doctor may cost is nothing compared to your very emotional and physical well being. Get help. If you need financial assistance, it’s out there. Just ask.

So what will it be today, friend?

Are you going to continue to carry the bag and add more rocks to it?

Or, are you tired of carrying it around and ready to let it go?

I, for one, hope you choose to “let it go”.

Quote of the Day

Today’s quote comes from head football coach of Lewiston High School in Maine, Jason Versey, and he once said:

Even a spineless arthropod sheds what’s no longer useful and leaves it behind them. Are you not greater than they?

Jason Versey

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