His Past

Michael was nineteen when he collapsed from nervous exhaustion. He was attending college full time during the day and writing, arranging, playing piano and drums in local clubs in the afternoons and evenings. He had high stress, little sleep, and was rapidly working himself to death. The family doctor suggested he be placed in a nearby mental  hospital where he could get the rest he needed. His mother later told me that she and the doctor regretted that decision, but at the time they didn't know what else to do. Michael described his two weeks of " rest" there as the most frightening experience of his life. He observed so much strange and horrifying behavior in the other patients that it traumatized him with fear that he might never get out. He went back to college with a less-stressful work schedule, but also great fear.
       Throughout the years we've been married, there have been times when he was so overworked and pressured that he experienced that same kind of exhaustion. It always reminded him of what had happened when he was a teenager. The past would come upon him like a specter and threaten him with the thought, You're going to end up in a mental hospital again. It's been at those times, he said, that my prayers for him have meant the most. I always prayed that he would know the truth, and the truth, and the truth would set him free ( John 8:32). I prayed for God to deliver him from the past. This has been a gradual process, but I saw strides forward every time I prayed.
     The past should not be a place where we live, but something from which we learn. We are to forget " those things which are behind" and reach " forward to those things which are ahead," and we're to " press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus" ( Philippians 3:13,14). God is a redeemer and a restorer. We need to allow Him to be both. He can redeem the past and restore what was lost. He can make up for the bad things that have happened ( Psalm 90:15). We must trust Him to do things. We can never move out of the present into the future of what God has for us if we cling to and live in the past.
     Your husband's past not only affects him, it affect your offspring as well. More is passed down to your children and grandchildren than just the color of your hair and eyes. We can leave a legacy as painful and damaging as the one we experienced ourselves. We can bequeath a heritage of divorce, anger, anxiety, depression, and fear, to name a few. Whatever you and your husband can free yourselves from will mean more freedom for them. As long as you dwell in the past, you not only lose some of what God has for your future, but for your children's future as well.
      The events of your husband's past that most affect his life today probably occurred in his childhood. Bad things that happened or good things that didn't happen with family members are the most significant. Being labeled in a certain way by a relative or peer carries over into adulthood. Such words as " fat," " stupid," " uncoordinated," " failure," " poor," " loser", " slob," " four-eyes," " slow," or " idiot" take their toll and imprint themselves into the mind and emotions well into adulthood. While no one can pretend the past didn't happen, it's possible to pray that all the effects of it are removed. No one is destined to live with them forever.
      God says we are to cry out for deliverance, walk in His ways, proclaim His truth, and then we will find freedom from our past. But sometimes there are levels of freedom to go through. Your husband may think he's gotten free of something and it will rear its head again, leaving him feeling like he's right back where he started. Tell him not to be discouraged by that. If he has been walking with the Lord, he is probably moving into a deeper level of liberty that God wants to work in his life. Your prayers will surely gird him for the journey to greater freedom.
      Being set free from the past can happen quickly or it can be a step-by-step process, depending on what God is teaching. The problem is, you can't make it happen on your timetable. You have to be patient and pray for as long as it takes to keep the voices of the past at bay so that your husband can make the decision to not listen to them.

Prayer:

Lord, I pray that You would enable ( husband's name) to let go of his past completely. Deliver him from any    hold it has on him. Help him to put off his former conduct and habitual ways of thinking about it and be renewed in his mind ( Ephesians 4:22,23). Enlarge his understanding to know that You make all things new ( Revelation 21:5). Show him a fresh, Holy Spirit-inspired way of relating to negative things that have happened. Give him the mind of Christ so that he can clearly discern Your voice from the voices of the past. When he hears those old voices, enable him to rise up and shut them down with the truth of Your Word. Where he has formerly experienced rejection or pain, I pray he not allow them to color what he sees and hears now. Pour forgiveness into his heart so that bitterness, resentment, revenge, and unforgiveness will have no place there. May he regard the past as only a history lesson and not a guide for his daily life. Wherever his past has become an unpleasant memory, I pray You would redeem it and bring life out of it. Bind up his wounds ( Psalm 147:3). Restore his soul ( Psalm 23:3). Help him to release the past so that he will not live in it, but learn from it, break out of it, and move into the future You have for him.

Power Tools:

Do not remember the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth; shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. ( Isaiah 43:18,19)

If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. ( 2 Corinthians 5:17)

Put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and ....put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness. ( Ephesians 4:22-24)

Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. ( 2 Corinthians 4:16)

God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying; and there shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away. ( Revelation 21:4)