Getting older, you have more of a past and less of a future. Considering your past, you can see how it has led to your present: who you have been has become who you are. Yet, you know that your present is pregnant with your future. Like any pregnancy, it carries something of the past you know and something of the future you don’t. One thing is sure: the unknown of your future is largely in your own hands. At the same time, even if you choose something completely different from your past, your past will still influence your future.

For most people, the past is a mixed bag. For some, there may have been more success than failure. Many, though, experience that they carry a lot of weight from the past. Past mistakes, failures or trauma can weigh them down, pull them back or even paralyze them. They can get stuck in a time warp: the present and the future are lived in the past. The mind and the emotions can’t seem to escape from that thing which happened to them or that thing which they did. This can lead to a terrible heaviness from which there is escape only in compensatory behaviours, damaging lifestyles and, sadly, even death.

But this is not meant to be. We know in ourselves that it is not right. We instinctively cry for freedom from such oppression which is both psychological and spiritual. We are meant to flourish, not wither. We are meant to grow upwards, not stagnate downwards. We are meant to reach forwards, not be dragged backwards.

It is true that psychology can do so much to help people process and heal burdens of the past, especially ones caused by others, which were not your own fault. But when a person carries a moral responsibility for past situations, psychology can only help them try and forgive themselves, and it often does so with wonderful results. Yet, deep in a person’s heart and conscience, moral guilt is not convincingly removed by a sort of self-absolution. At root, it must be surrendered to the only One who can actually remove it, completely and permanently. Many hearts would find such freedom and peace if they would but come to Christ who literally took all our guilt on Himself and destroyed it by His death in loving obedience to the Father on the Cross.