Stop Dying And Start LivingSample

Start Looking Forward

Many people go through life thinking they are living, when in reality, by the way they live their lives, it seems more like they are dying. To them, life is nothing more than existing and getting by day after day. They are overwhelmed by obstacles, problems, and challenges. They live stressed out to such degree that it seems that there is no life within them.

Life is the centerpiece of the Bible. Jesus came so that we may have life. God breathed the breath of life into the man He formed from the dust of the ground, and the man became a living person. In John 11:25 Jesus said, “… I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live.” He calls Himself the life. Romans 6:4 calls us to live in the newness of life, not death. Every person on Earth yearns for a good life. We do not want to merely exist, breathe, and function. We want to live a life that is filled with enthusiasm, passion, optimism, peace, and happiness. We want to live our lives to the fullest. 

The first thing we must do to live a full life, to stop dying and start really living, is to develop a forward look. We must forget all the things that are behind us. In our cars, we cannot drive forward while constantly looking at our rear-view mirror, or we may crash. We cannot go forward and backward at the same time. We either go forward or backward. In the same way, to stop dying and start living, we must forget what is behind us. Why? As it says in Isaiah 43:18–19, if we do not forget the things of old, we will never have the new things that God is doing. 

We cannot change what happened to us in the past, but we can change its impact on our minds, our thoughts, and our way of life. We cannot change the facts, but we can stop adding our opinions to those facts. For instance, an investor who lost thousands of dollars in the stock market exclaims, “I’m ruined! This is terrible. It is the worst thing that ever happened to me!” The fact is they lost the money. The opinion they added is that they are ruined. 

We should stop looking back and adding negative opinions to facts. Instead, we should take a positive approach. Philippians says we should start reaching, pressing forward; when we are reaching, we are going towards something. Life is not a destination; it is a journey. If we want to stop dying and start living, we should be reaching forward every day. Do not act like you have arrived already, like you are there, like there is nothing left to do. Keep moving, keep reaching forward.