Owning Your Past Without Hiding

When I became a Christian, one of the reasons I said I didn’t want to go back to Cleveland was that I had left a lot of skeletons there. I had done a lot of dirt, and I said, “Lord, I don’t want to go back there. Somebody might recognize me. Somebody might say, ‘You’re trying to preach to me?’” I was afraid that someone would call up my past to discredit where I was in my journey with God.

But let me tell you something about the goodness of God. God is not in the business of just making us look good on the outside. He’s in the business of doing a deep and thorough work in us. When God does his business in your heart and mine, he takes care of guilt. He addresses shame. And he brings us to the point where, if someone calls up our past, we can say, “Yes — you didn’t like that person? I don’t like him either. It’s a good thing that by the grace of God he’s been crucified with Christ.”

When God does his work in us, we don’t need to hide from the things we have done. We can take accountability for them. It doesn’t mean I skate off into the sunset free of consequences, but it means God has dealt with the guilt and shame so thoroughly that I can say, “Yes, these are things I have done, and I’m living with those consequences — but right by my side is a loving and merciful God who said he would never leave me nor forsake me.” So I can own my junk, and I can also own the fact that in Christ I am a new creation.