by Randal Matheny

This weekend I was down south in Porto Alegre giving the Total Transformation seminar. At the end of each seminar, I ask the participants to evaluate the material. One of the questions asks, "What principle, idea or biblical passage most helped you?"

One of the principles most cited is, "Let go of the past to embrace the future."

Our past is a double-edged knife. Perhaps it was very good, and we keep wishing that wonderful period of our life would return. Or perhaps our past was traumatic or difficult and we can't overcome the feelings or bitterness that still chains us.

Israel also had such moments. When the people returned from exile and began rebuilding the temple that had been destroyed some 70 years earlier, they overcame many difficulties. With God's blessing, they managed to lay the temple foundation. On that day, there was great celebration.

"And all the people shouted with a great shout when they praised the Lord because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid" (Ezra 3.11b, NASV).

It was a day of great rejoicing after such an important victory for the people spiritual life. But not everybody could join in the party.

"Yet many of the priests and Levites and heads of fathers' households, the old men who had seen the first temple, wept with a loud voice when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, while many shouted aloud for joy" (v. 12).

The older members of the people remembered the glorious temple of Solomon -- and wept. The beginning of this new temple was modest. And they knew there would be no top quality finish like the former one. For the people were now weak, poor, and needy.

"... [T]he people could not distinguish the sound of the shout of joy from the sound of the weeping of the people, for the people shouted with a great shout, and the sound was heard far away" (v. 13).

Good thing the partying Jews made lots of noise, but there is a melancholy note to this verse. Though all should have been celebrating, the crying and rejoicing mixed together in the crowd.

It doesn't matter what you lost in your wonderful past. Tears will not turn back the clock. But they will keep you from celebration today's victories and the advances, small as they may be, of a richer spiritual life with the people of God.

Let go of the past, however good it was. Only in this way will you be able to rejoice in the present and embrace a promising future.