The angel said to those who were standing before him, “Take off his filthy clothes.” – Zechariah 3:4

Today’s Scripture Reading (July 18, 2017): Zechariah 3

Eeyore (Winnie the Pooh) probably sums up the way that we often feel when he says “It's not much of a tail, but I'm sort of attached to it.” There are a lot of things in our lives that we may not like, but the truth is that we are kind of attached to them. And because we are attached to them, they must be important, at least to us.

I believe that there is a serious disconnect between what the world seems to think is important and the truth of what is important. We appear to put a lot of emphasis on what has happened – on our tails. We want to emphasize what we have done in the past. What experience it is that we possess. Somehow we believe that what has happened in the past is a good indicator of what will occur in the future. And sometimes we are right. But the problem is that the emphasis assumes that we live in a static world and that we don’t grow or learn – and that change is impossible.

But the truth is that we don’t live in a static world – and we change. Often our failures are more important than our successes – because our failures become the best teachers that life has to offer. As a result, those that have struggled in the past are sometimes better equipped to meet the future than those that have found easy success. And in the end – what is crucial is what happens tomorrow.

That is a principal that is not lost on God. What is important is not what has happened – we have all struggled and failed and stand in filthy clothes and in need of forgiveness. What is important is what we will do next – what actions we are brave enough to take as we move forward. And sometimes those who have struggled in the past make the best foray into the future if they are willing to learn from what has happened in the past and allow God to move them into the future.

God has never wanted your past to define you – he always looks to your future for the definition of your life. And that is why we always need to stand in of repentance – in need of saying to each other and to God that we refuse to let the past define us. But we will learn from the places we have been and the mistakes that we have made. We agree with God that our lives are about the future. We all have a tail trailing behind us that we are attached to, but it does not have to define the future toward which we are moving – although if we have learned the lesson of the tail, we will be stronger as we move forward. We agree with God that our lives are about tomorrow. God has already taken away our sin – and absolutely nothing else matters.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Zechariah 4