Send the Past To the Voicemail

From time to time, I would get a text, call, or Facebook message from people who were a part of my past, mostly males. You may ask well “Why do they still have you number?” or “Why haven’t you changed your number?” Honey, I’ve had my number since 2006 so it’s definitely not going to change. I do this thing called “ignoring” or mentally sending you to the voicemail.

In the literal sense, we send people to voicemail because we don’t feel like talking to them or we are not available to talk to them. For example, bill collectors. Nobody wants to talk to bill collectors.  Just leave it on the voicemail.

Everyone has a past. Everyone has associates, ex- friends, ex-boyfriends/ girlfriends, etc. who played a part of their past lives but in the present, don’t associate with these people anymore.  A lot of the people who I don’t associate with anymore are due to that was a part of my life that I’m not in anymore. I’m not that person that I used to be. If I was to still associate with the people I used to hang out with back then, being the person I am now, it wouldn’t benefit my life in any way.

2 Corinth 6:14a (KJV) says, "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship have righteousness have with unrighteousness?"

So do you get a “sympathetic feeling” when you get a text or Facebook message from someone in your past and you feel “THE NEED” to respond to this person? Or the “well..I don’t want to be rude so…..” How are you being rude when you cut this relationship or friendship off so long ago? Everybody couldn’t go to where you were going.

Isaiah 43:18-19 (KJV) says, “Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old. (19) Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.”

How can we expect God to do something new in our lives if we are still holding on to the things and people of the past? How can we expect Him to bless us with our one day future husband/wife if we are still holding on to ex-boyfriends/girlfriends, randoms, boos, baes, or whatever else you have laying around? You have to let go of the past. You can’t move forward if you are still “reconnecting” with the past.  Clip that connection. God is ready to release his best for your life. You have to focus on what’s ahead of you and reach for it.

Sometimes we need to even send our thoughts about people of our past to voicemail.

2 Corinth 10:5 (KJV) says, "Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itelf against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of God." 

Why would you constantly think about someone who constantly pressured you to have sex with them? Someone who pushed you towards sin? That's still a connection to the past. That's a thought that goes against the knowledge of God. God said in His word to flee fornication and that your body is a temple (I Corith 18 and I Corith 19-20). Oh but you miss him/her right? Was that relationship glorifying God? Who are you serving? God or them? Send those thoughts to voicemail and let it go.

What we have to understand in life, we have different seasons. Some people will only stick around for a season. Have you noticed that some of the people you hung around back in 2004 are not the same people you have around you now in 2014? Your friends, relationships and acquaintances change due to a change in towns, schools, jobs, churches, etc. Only the people that were meant to stay in your life long term will stick with you through the changes of seasons and circumstances. So understanding this, you can't keep connecting with the ones that "didn't make the cut" for the next season of your life. You can't even feel guilty about it. God puts people in your life where He sees fit. He puts people in your life that are going to build you up and benefit your life. Those are the people that will continually keep making the cut. So stop trying to take people from your past with you. They can't go. Stop responding to the "out of the blue" text messages, calls, Facebook messages, or how ever else they are trying to contact you. So what if they miss you? Let them miss you. Where you are in life now, they can't do anything for you anymore. It's over.  SEND THE PAST STRAIGHT TO VOICEMAIL BECAUSE THEY HAVE ABSOLUTELY NOTHING NEW TO SAY.

"Sometimes there's a GOOD in goodbye"

Acknowledge. Fix. Keep it Moving. 

Other reference scriptures on letting go of the past

Philippians 3:13-14 (Moving toward the mark of Christ)

2 Corinthians 5:17 (You are a new creature)

2 Corinthians 12:9-10 (the strength to let go of the past)

Philippians 4:11 (You're content so you don't need to go backwards)

1 John 1:9 (You are forgiven from your past so leave it be)