Comedian Jerry Lewis joked that his best wedding gift was a film of the ceremony—because when things got really bad in his marriage he could go into a room by himself, run the film backwards, and walk out a free man! We smile, but you can’t go back and rewrite history any more than you can unscramble an egg. When you dwell on the past it’s always at the expense of the future, but when you learn from the past it has the potential to make your future better.

Whenever you find yourself saying, ‘If I knew then what I know now,’ remind yourself that unless you grow you’ll be saying the same thing ten or twenty years from now. You say, ‘If only I’d been willing to forgive my spouse instead of doling out punishment, maybe I could have kept my marriage together and built a great relationship.’ Maybe you struggle with the memory of an abortion, wondering about the child who might have been and the joy he or she might have brought. Perhaps you’re a good person who did a bad thing and ended up with a criminal record; now you’re saying, ‘If only…’

Well, here’s what God says:

(1) ‘Your sins have been forgiven through Jesus.’ (1 John 2:12 NLT)

(2) ‘I… will blot out your sins for My own sake and will never think of them again.’ (Isaiah 43:25 NLT)

(3) ‘Do not call to mind the former things, or ponder things of the past. Behold, I will do something new, now it will spring forth…’ The word for you today is: let go of your past.