Stop the replay of your painful past
You can stop the replay of ugly episodes from your past and the negative feelings that go with them, but I have to warn you, it's not easy.
Sometimes we singles have too much time to think, dredging up bad memories and torturing ourselves with them. It's part of the mistaken notion that we can live a perfect, trouble-free life. But life isn't a happily-ever-after fairy tale, so we make a futile attempt to repair the past by endlessly rehashing it, rehearsing what we could have done differently.
Simple logic tells us the past is gone. Even God can't change it, yet somehow we think we can. How silly is that?
On your computer is a little trash can icon. You put files in there you want to get rid of, empty the trash, and voila! They're gone.
Can we do that with our bad memories too?
The myth of the uncontrollable mind
Who hasn't given second thoughts to some situation, saying, "I should have said…" or "I should have done this…" Even if we had responded with the most clever remark possible at the time, it probably wouldn't have changed the situation.
We blame a lot of junk on Satan that he wishes he could do. The truth is that you have control over your mind, not him. As soon as you accept that, you will become confident in exercising that control.
Although Satan isn't to blame for our constant mental reruns, we're deceived by another myth: that our mind has some sort of mind of its own.
Huh?
Why else would we think about harmful things so much? Why would we harp on our tragedies instead of our triumphs?
Well, no, everybody's mind is active—often too active—but we can master our thoughts. We can be the boss of what goes on behind our eyes.
Taking control is possible, and we'll review some methods later, but for now it's important to realize you don't have to be a helpless victim. You don't have to be a prisoner of your past. The present and future are much happier places to live. It's time to pull your eyes away from the rearview mirror and focus them on what's coming ahead.
Don't fear if you've been replaying past calamities most of your life. I did that too. What matters now is deciding to seize control then acting on it.
A negative balance in your 'justice' account
We all hate to be treated unfairly. When we feel we've been slighted or taken advantage of, our internal scales demand rebalancing. The problem, though, is that the time for justice may have passed.
If we're mistreated often enough, we begin to pile up debts in our "personal justice" account. Some people are able to write off these bad debts as uncollectible, but others can't let them go. They give up in despair, labeling themselves as born losers or bad luck persons. Or they slide into bitterness.
No matter how many things have gone wrong so far, you can start to turn things around. Christianity does not guarantee a trouble-free life, and any TV evangelist who implies that is lying. Oh, they may dress it up with cherry-picked Bible verses, but the truth is that Jesus promised us "tribulation," a big word for trouble. If he got picked on and treated unfairly, why should we expect any better?
Part of making a U-turn is shaking off the fallacy that we're destined to live a miserable life. We can balance those scales better by living carefully and foreseeing the consequences of our actions.
Keep in mind too that some wrongs are righted only in the next life. God is a God of justice. One of the rewards of heaven will be divine compensation for the wrongs done to us in this life.
Now that you've accepted that you can stop the replay of these upsetting events, let's look at real life solutions.
So how can we stop the replay?
We've just touched on the first way to stop the replay. We turn our "justice debts" over to God, the way a business turns delinquent accounts over to a collection agency.
This takes intense trust in God. You have to believe with all your heart that he will make things right, in his own way and in his own time. God has a meticulous record of every time you've been mistreated. You don't need to keep reminding him and you don't need to keep reviewing your hurts so you don't forget.
He is a God of justice and a God of mercy. We benefit from both.
The second method to stop the replay takes advantage of one of Jack's truths:
The human mind is capable of thinking about only one thing at a time.
Just as we stop a bad habit by replacing it with a good habit, we can replace destructive thinking with constructive thinking. Refuse to entertain upsetting memories. Replace them with pleasant thoughts—compliments, accomplishments, kindnesses.
Paul gave us a list of things to fill our minds with:
"Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things." (Philippians 4:8, ESV)
Taming your thoughts takes determination, but with the Holy Spirit's help, you're up to it. In fact, it's a matter of survival for single people. That's how crucial it is.
Use the past as a teacher to learn from, not as a whip to punish yourself with.
Once you learn the lesson, do what it takes to stop the replay. You've graduated from that class. Time to move on.
