Are You Moving Forward In Your Life? Part One

In part one I will discuss moving forward in your life from the standpoint of emotional and relational growth.

The first step in this process is to get past our past. We must deal with those things that have held us back, like negative self-talk, anger issues, verbal, emotional, or physical abuse, low self-esteem, negative family upbringing, destructive reactions to people or circumstances, or destructive habits. The list could go on and on. Many of these things will require counseling. If these areas are not dealt with they will become negative strongholds.

Negative strongholds are destructive habits, attitudes, or mindsets that have a grip on us, and have become so much a part of our subconscious character, that they hold us back in defeat and mediocrity, where we can not experience a life of victory and happiness. Second Corinthians 10:4 says, “The weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses”(Some translations use the word “strongholds”).

Some of our wrong thinking began at a very young age. Consider the following questions:

•  What negative experiences did you have in childhood that you have never dealt with?
• What was your early church experience like? Has it hindered you or helped you?
• When you left high school how did you feel about yourself? What mindsets did you have then, and have they negatively impacted you later in life?
  
• Where might you be today if you had confronted these issues early in life and brought them to a satisfactory resolution?
  

Strongholds must not be passed down to the next generation. They must not be accepted as normal. Someone in the family needs to break them. If they are not broken they can become generational curses-destructive thinking, habits, and reactions that have become the norm from one generation to the next.

Hopefully, strongholds will not become a life-long battle. Life’s greatest heartbreak, apart from not knowing Christ as Savior, is for people to go through their entire existence with no victory over their hurts and struggles. Don’t allow yourself to take your past to your grave!

Here are a couple of Bible verses to focus on in moving forward in our lives.

Isaiah 43:18-19 say, “Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing, now it springs forth. Do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”

Isaiah 42:9 further states, “Behold, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare. Before they spring forth, I will tell you.”

The journey of emotional and relational growth is never-ending, but it is something to continuously strive for. It is related to spiritual maturity, which will be the subject of part two, where we will consider how to move forward in our spiritual journey.