I’m staying in India

I want to talk about everyone’s favorite sticky subject: the past.

 

Yep. I’m going there. 

 

It’s something each one of us has and—for most of us—our past is complicated to say the least. It’s littered with a diversity of emotions and experiences: good times and bad times; shining achievements and regrettable decisions; mountaintops and valleys; incredible memories and devastating heartbreaks. 

 

When we look back on our lives, we have two perspectives that tend to direct our overall attitude towards the past. Either we can reminisce with nostalgia on those halcyon days or we can look back with great sorrow on the era of our history that—at least for the most part—we wish we could just forget. 

 

If you find yourself leaning towards the first perspective then this post isn’t for you. I’m happy that you’re able to look back on your past with great fondness and honestly a little part of me envies you. But, this post just isn’t for you. 

 

This post is for those people out there who try to shove their past back into the closet every morning when they wake up. This post is for those people who are afraid to go to sleep because they don’t want to relive the nightmares of their former life. This post is for those people who find themselves disappearing into daydreams in which they create a life that could’ve been; a life in which their past had played out differently. 

 

 

 

Before we launched for the World Race in Atlanta last month, we were given a journal to take with us on the journey. Inside of this journal are writing prompts for each month of the Race. They ask questions like “What made you feel alive this month?” or “What broke your heart this month?” or “What did you learn about yourself this month?” 

 

But, at the very beginning of this journal is a section titled “Mementos.” In this section, we are encouraged to find our “mementos” for each month: one thing that we leave behind in each country; one thing that we pick up in each country. Once you record the mementos that you’re taking and leaving, you leave a short explanation of why you chose that specific memento. Simple enough, right?

 

I’m a huge sucker for symbolism. I always seem to find a way to pull out some kind of symbolic undertone from the most mundane of situations. So, this whole memento business had my name written all over it from the very beginning. I stepped straight off the plane and into India with my eyes open wide for what my mementos would be for this first month of the Race. 

 

 

 

If you know me, you know I am a huge fan of accessories. I have no less than five bracelets on at any given time. I have worn a necklace every day for the past five years. You won’t catch me dead without a watch. 

 

But, the one thing I don’t wear is a ring. It isn’t because I don’t like them; on the contrary, I am crazy about rings. I just don’t wear one because I haven’t ever found one that seems to be “meant for me.” Class rings are too cliché and plain bands are just—well—plain. 

 

But, in the midst of the chaos of an Indian marketplace, I found my ring. For just 200 rupees (~3 US dollars), I purchased it. It was a single ring that was made to look as if it was about five or six rings that were welded together. I loved it. I fiddled around with it constantly and would find myself just looking at it and smiling because I was so pleased with my find. 

 

 

 

One morning—sitting on the rooftop of the building our team lives in this month, God spoke to me. It was like he reached down and whispered right into my heart. 

 

And—in that moment—I realized why I had been so drawn to the ring in the first place: it was my memento that I would take from India. 

 

In the fifteenth chapter of Luke’s gospel, we come across one of the most famous stories in all of the four accounts of Jesus’ life: The Parable of the Prodigal Son. 

 

In this story, Jesus speaks of a man who had two sons; of the younger son who took his half of his father’s inheritance and ran away; of how this son squandered this inheritance in a far off land; of how this son found himself yearning to eat with the pigs. 

 

How many of us have found ourselves like this younger son? How many of us run from God into a far off country because we think that we have it all figured out? How many of us have made decisions we regretted, done things we wish we hadn’t, hurt people we really cared about in our wanderings to this far off country? 

 

I know I have. Too many times to count. For a good stretch of time there, I felt like every week I would find myself back in that far off country somehow. Making the same foolish decisions, doing the same stupid things, hurting the same innocent people. 

 

But—you should know—Jesus’ story didn’t end there. 

 

He goes on to tell of how this son humbly returned home in the hope that he could merely take on a role as one of his father’s servants; of how the father saw this son returning while he was still a long way off and ran to him; of how the father embraced him and put a robe on him. 

 

And of how he put a ring on his finger. 

 

 

 

He told me that I was his son and that no matter how far I thought I had gotten from him, he was there. He was looking for me, running to me, embracing me. 

 

Remember how I said that the ring was made to look as if it was several rings welded together? That was no accident: God revealed to me that those separate rings represented all the different times I had wandered off only to humbly come back home to the relentless love of the Father. 

 

Suddenly that $3 ring became priceless; it became eternally meaningful to me.

 

I couldn’t stop looking down at the ring after that. I would tighten my fist around it and hold onto it for dear life. Because for me this ring represented the great love of the Father. The love that transcended every sin, every mistake, every poor decision. The love that was greater than my past. 

 

I had the ring for nearly two weeks. 

 

Until today. When I lost it. 

 

We were about to wash our hands for lunch: a moment in which I would usually remove the ring. I went to pull it off and noticed that it was gone. I went to the chairs we had been sitting in, to the van we rode in, to the path we had walked down to reach the house. Nothing. 

 

It was gone. Just like that. 

 

I was devastated. That cheap, metal ring had come to mean so much to me. God had spoken to me so much through this simple little ring. I couldn’t comprehend how I had been so careless with it.

 

 

You see, the ring had reminded me of the Father’s unfailing love for us in spite of all the wandering off that we do. It had been a symbol of the way that he is always right there—waiting for us to come home.

 

But, the ring had also reminded me of something else—something not so great: my past. 

 

Each time I looked at the ring I was reminded of his love, but I was also reminded of my failures. Reminded of the lies I had told. Reminded of the people I had hurt. Reminded of the wrong choices I had made. The ring reminded me of the past that I had tried to hide for so long.

 

And this was wrong. This isn’t what God intended for me—this isn’t what he intends for any of us. 

 

When I realized I had lost the ring, God came down and he spoke to me once again. He whispered into my heart and he told me that it was better this way. He told me that just as I had no idea where the ring was, so he too had no idea where my sin was. He had forgotten my sin—he had forgotten my past—completely. 

 

And then he said: “It is time for you to do the same, my child.”

 

See, the thing with my past is that I had tried to move on from it without actually letting go of it—without leaving it behind. I had tried to put my past in the past while simultaneously bringing it into the present. I lived my life in the shadow of the sins of my past. I constantly would let my mind drift back to who I was before; back to who I was when I—like the prodigal—had wandered off into that far off country. No matter how hard I tried to move on, the past would find its way back into my mind; and it would haunt me there. 

 

 

In Psalm 103:12, David says “as far as the east is from the west, so far does [God] remove our sins from us.” The prophet Isaiah goes on to say “for you will forget the shame of your youth” (Isa. 54:4). The God of creation, the God of the universe casts our sins out further than we ever could fathom; and then, he declares that we too will forget them. This should bring you hope, my friends. This should flood you with peace. 

 

I had originally thought that the memento I would pick up from India would be that beloved ring. And, in a way it was: I am still walking away from India with a new understanding of the endless, unconditional love of the Father; of the Father who is there to welcome me back home from my wandering in a far off country. But, I now know that I am leaving behind something I never had intended to when I first stepped off of that plane a few weeks ago. 

 

 

Or at least, I’m leaving behind a part of me. That part of me that would always cling onto my past. That part of me that cowered in fear that my past would come back for me. That part of me that stayed up at night wondering what could’ve been had I made better decisions in my past. 

 

 

I am forgetting the shame of my youth.

 

I am finally accepting that God has truly removed my sin.

 

I am trusting him when he says he casts my sin out completely. 

 

I am drowning in the grace that is so freely poured out on me. 

 

I am living in this present moment instead of remaining stuck in the past.

 

I am believing that the blood of Jesus washes all my sin away—past, present, and forevermore.