My Past Will Not Define Me
INTERNSHIP
In a small courthouse room, I would pick up a manila folder from the top of the stack, set it on the plain, square table in front of me, and start reading.
Inside each folder was the full case against a juvenile: violent or sexual assaults, most often against other juveniles.
My role was straightforward. First, thoroughly read the file.
This was tough because these were word-for-word interviews of child victims describing assaults they didn’t yet have words for.
After studying the case, I was to write a sentencing recommendation to the judge: any combination of counseling, family therapy, treatment, or incarceration.
Over three months, it was one folder after another. Dozens upon dozens of firsthand accounts of abuse of kids who still needed help tying their shoes.
And it just kept coming. Folder after folder. Victim after victim. Juvenile perp after juvenile perp.
That internship with Juvenile Courts helped me realize I didn’t want to spend my life pursuing justice after the fact.
I wanted to get upstream.
Before the damage.
Before the Manila folder.
To be in the work of helping people never become perpetrators.
And to be there for victims in a broken world.
Although I finished my degree in criminal justice, I never returned to the field.
That internship experience frames the pastoral counseling truth I have shared most often over the last several decades, which we will explore today. It helps us directly address the regret: If I had it to do over again, I would not let my past define me.
THE PAST
Let’s begin in Acts 8:1-3. Saul was one of the witnesses, and he agreed completely with the killing of Stephen. A great wave of persecution began that day, sweeping over the church in Jerusalem; and all the believers except the apostles were scattered through the regions of Judea and Samaria... But Saul was going everywhere to destroy the church. He went from house to house, dragging out both men and women to throw them into prison.
When we get to 9:1–2, Saul (Paul) is still at it. We don’t know if this is weeks or months later. But the point is, he continued wrecking people’s lives with his actions.
Meanwhile, Saul was uttering threats with every breath and was eager to kill the Lord’s followers. So he went to the high priest. He requested letters addressed to the synagogues in Damascus, asking for their cooperation in the arrest of any followers of the Way he found there. He wanted to bring them, both men and women, back to Jerusalem in chains.
A side observation: Saul (Paul) persecuting and imprisoning Christians was legal. It was even celebrated by his friends and peers. And that reminds us, just because something is legal doesn’t make it moral. You can have the law on your side and still be doing harm to people and sinning against God. So let’s never confuse what’s legal with what’s biblical.
On To The Point: Saul (Paul) persecuting Christians wasn’t just something he did; it was who he was. His past formation as a first-century devout Jew, trained in Jerusalem, was pushing him straight into his present actions of persecution. He believed he was right. He believed he was protecting something sacred. And out of that identity formed in his past, he was presently harming people simply because of what they believed.
Our culture has a thousand ways of telling us the same lie.
Our past is our identity.
What we did.
What was done to us.
The home we came from.
The label that got put on us years ago.
It all gets handed back to us like a declaration: “This is who you are.”
Those stories from our past get retold by others and, most painfully, repeated in our minds.
And we let them shape the way we live in the present.
Are you letting your past define you?
THE PRESENT
…‘Saul! Saul! Why are you persecuting me?’... —Jesus
Paul was on his way to keep doing what he had been doing, hunting down Christians, when Jesus’ light-smacked him to the ground. You can read Acts 9:3-6 to get the full scoop.
Paul, who thought he saw everything clearly, suddenly realized he had been completely wrong. In an instant, his present was interrupted by his future. His past was no longer going to define him.
THE FUTURE
“But the Lord said, ‘Go, for Saul is my chosen instrument to take my message to the Gentiles and to kings, as well as to the people of Israel…’” — Acts 9:15-16
Jesus was not going to let Paul’s past continue to define his present.
“You are my chosen instrument to take my message to the Gentiles and to kings...”
Paul was being shown his future.
What is happening here is this: Paul’s past of destroying Christians is going to be pushed out of his present as the future God has called him to comes rushing in.
MANILA FOLDERS
That is why the kids in those manila folders have impacted my pastoral ministry all these years.
Every person in the cases I handled, victim and perpetrator, are now in their 30s and 40s. I’m sure many still have that terrible event in their past pressing in on the present, defining them, dictating their self-esteem, dysfunction, or addiction.
And for a lot of them, that past likely became a script they kept living out. But this is part of the power of the gospel: through Jesus, no one has to be forever defined by the worst thing they suffered or did. Their past does not have to have the final word. The future God is calling them to, as his beloved, can define their life in the present.
PROCESSING THE PAST
And to be clear, our past does impact us in significant ways. It leaves marks. It often affects how we react, trust, cope, and relate to people. That is why we should receive whatever help we need, whether that is wise counsel, professional therapy, a recovery group, or whatever else is needed.
Facing how our past has affected us is not a denial of faith. It is often part of healing. But even while we take that seriously, we hold on to this truth: our past may affect us deeply, but it does not have to define us or determine our future.
Further Clarification: Forgiveness also does not mean we refuse to pursue justice for harm done to us. And accepting Christ is not a “get out of jail free” card. Grace forgives sin, but it does not erase civil and/or social consequences.
BECOMING YOUR FUTURE
Is your past defining you?
Is it living in your mind as regret, shame, or failure?
The thing you did.
The thing that was done to you.
The gospel does not pretend your past was small.
It declares that your past does not determine your present.
In Jesus, you are called to live in the present for the future he’s calling you to, not from your past.
You no longer need to live another day with the regret that you have let your past define you.
Let the future God has for you come rushing into your present.
PRAYER
Jesus,
Help me not live chained to old labels, old failures, old shame, or old wounds.
I will not let my past keep speaking louder than your grace.
Thank you for your healing and your forgiveness.
Fill me with courage, hope, and a holy expectancy for who I am becoming in you.
Teach me to define myself not by my past, but by the future you are calling me to.
Amen.
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