Grace for My Home | Christian Women, Growing in Faith, Spirit-Led, Hearing from God, Sowing Truth

Longing for the Past or Looking Forward to the Future?

• Audrey McCracken | Mom Encourager • Season 3 • Episode 85

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Audrey McCracken:

Hello friends, welcome back to Grace From A Home. I hope and pray that you are having a great season, that you're in the middle of a good season, that you are doing some things that you love with some people that you love, and that your joys are greater than your trials. Right now. And I just want to come to you today and apologize for being out of pocket. I took an unexpected podcast break and I'm sure, as mamas, you will understand this. We are in a time of transition and I'm just trying to figure it all out. One of my goals for this podcast is to keep it real. I don't want to try to pretend to be something I am not, because I feel like that puts false expectations on people. You know, when we try to be perfect or try to come off as picture perfect, all that does is set up other people for failure, because they feel like either they'll never measure up or that somehow they have it harder than other people because those people aren't real, that they're watching and they're following. And so for you and for my sanity and my conscience, I really do try to keep it real. And you know, there are areas where the Lord has given me great breakthrough and he's given me grace and given me wisdom. And there are other areas where I struggle and I'm learning. I'm like you guys. I am on a road with Jesus and he is showing me things along the way. A road with Jesus and he is showing me things along the way and my goal, my greatest desire, is one day to see him at the end of the road face to face, but right now he's walking with me by the Holy Spirit and changing me and working on me. This is a season, such a busy season. We're all in busy seasons, I know, but I wrapped up homeschooling with my youngest son, caleb, about a busy season. We're all in busy seasons, I know, but I wrapped up homeschooling with my youngest son, caleb, about a month ago and I didn't realize. I didn't expect it to hit me the way it hit me. You know our last day of homeschooling he was just thrilled, he was so glad to finally be done for the year and, you know, excited about going to public school next year. But for me it was. It was almost the whole season of knowing this is. It has almost been like a death to me, and maybe that may sound silly to people who you don't homeschool. I think people who do homeschool, or at least homeschool because they love homeschooling, can understand that I am at the end of a long journey when it comes to homeschooling my children and I have been very sad about that and because for so long that was the vision. That was the vision that the Lord had given me for my family, because for me, homeschooling wasn't just something that I had to do, it was something that I got to do. It was a tool that I was able to use to disciple my children as best as I knew how for Jesus, and so so much of our life was wrapped around that. And, of course, things changed when my older kids went to public school, first my oldest son, david, and then my second son, luke. You know, things changed when they left the nest and they haven't left the nest, they're in high school but it was different. But I still had one homeschooler, and so I was still a homeschool mom and I still, you know, patterned my days after that and tried to make that a priority in my life. And so, now that it's not there, I have really been struggling with what is my goal? What are my days supposed to look like? And I know it's summer and it would be like this, whether we were still homeschooling or not, because you know we don't do school during the summer anyway. But just thinking ahead about next year and where God needs me, and you know what is the future for my podcast and what is the future for my home and for our coffee shop and for our ministry, has these things have really been weighing on my heart. And I remember when the Lord first called me to homeschool, it was so clear to me, like I had a, a knowing in my, in my heart of hearts, in my, in my gut. This is what the Lord wants me to do. It was so strong that it pulled me through the hard days because I knew I was doing what the Lord had asked of me. So, even when it was hard, there was a grace, there was a knowing. Okay, it's hard, but at least I'm on the right track. It's really hard to be, you know, on the wrong track when things are hard, because then you just want to stop. But when you know you're on the right track and the Lord is, you know the Lord is with you and he's helping you through that. Through it, it gives you a special grace, a special confidence, a faith that, okay, this is part of the process. So now, as I'm looking forward and saying Lord, what next I need, that I need to know that I'm about my father's business, that I'm on assignment, that I'm doing the things that he's asked of me, and the only way to know that is to talk to him. It's the only way, it was the only way to get an assignment from the Lord, to get a clear vision of what he has for us is to talk to him and to communicate with him, because when we talk to him, he talks to us. When we ask him questions, he answers those questions and I believe he wants to do that. But so many times, you know, we struggle with our own feelings and our own thoughts and our own worries and our own doubts. Well, what if I don't pray enough? What if I don't say the right things? What if you know what I want isn't what he wants? Those kinds of things. And so we have to pray to get through those things. We have to pray to kind of weed out those, those things and figure out Lord, you know, what is your assignment? I'm, I'm really, I'm ready, lord, you know. Lord, help me. Lord. I believe Lord, help my unbelief, and so that's where I have been and that's where I am. So I'm in a time, right now, of seeking the Lord's direction for my life. And I'm telling you all of this, not to you know, make it all about me, but because we all struggle. And if you're struggling with what you're supposed to be doing, if you struggle with your purpose, with your calling, with the assignment God has for you, I just want you to know that we all do. I think all of us that really do want to be doing what God has asked of us. If we're honest, we struggle in those areas, and so I'm telling you this so you'll know this is normal. We struggle in those areas, and so I'm telling you this so you'll know this is normal. And but at the same time, I truly believe that God is going to give me clarity and speak, or I wouldn't be praying Right. And as that happens, as that unfolds, you know I've served the Lord long enough to know that it doesn't always happen immediately. You know, there's not always a, a sign or a vision. You know, a lot of times it's just a. You know, one step at a time. Oh, I feel like God's asked me to do this. Well, I have peace with doing that, or? Or, you know, I don't think this was what I was supposed to be doing, and so that's what I've been trying to filter through and hear and be sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit.

Audrey McCracken:

You know, one of the major things that I've been praying about is this podcast and just growing in this ministry to moms and to women and how that is supposed to look. And my prayer is Lord, show me what you want me to do, because even a good thing, if it's not a God thing, you don't want to be doing it. But I feel a certain peace that the Lord has opened this door. It has been an outlet for me, it has been a blessing for me, it has been a wonderful way for me being at home, to connect with other people and I don't even have to leave my home right. So I really do believe and I pray that the Lord would show me how you know what direction to go in with the podcast.

Audrey McCracken:

And then, of course, I have the coffee shop, which I love, but I don't feel like that's my high calling. I don't feel like that's something that I'm going to pour all of myself into. I love it. It's taken a lot to get it open. It was like a birthing and it's been open a year. Now. We've been open for a year and I will tell you that our coffee shop is doing great. We just hired two new people who are not connected with our church, which is the first two people that we've hired that had not come from inside our own congregation, and that was thrilling and scary at the same time, because you want the people who you work with and those who two young girls who have our heart and that we're able to bring on and show the ropes. And they have been a huge blessing to me and my sister because they've given us some time during the summer to spend with our family and also, as a lot of our other workers are on vacation and doing other things, it's kind of taken some of the load that would be on us otherwise. So I thank the Lord for that.

Audrey McCracken:

But, like I said, I don't feel like the coffee shop is my high calling. I feel like it's a ministry and something the Lord has given me and I enjoy doing. But I know that my heart is towards ministry and it always has been, and at the same time, I want to make sure I'm still taking care of my family, because, even though I may not be at the same time, I want to make sure I'm still taking care of my family because, even though I may not be homeschooling them, I'm certainly still a mom and I'm a mom of teenagers, and that's a whole other realm. I'm trying to figure that out as I go. Also, you know our ministry.

Audrey McCracken:

We moved our church not too long ago. You guys who listen to my podcast know that and transitions are always hard, and when you're trying to bring people along with you on a transition, that's even harder because you're struggling and dealing with things and questions and being uncomfortable. But you've got a whole lot of people who are right behind you, who are going through the same things, and so you have to communicate and you have to pray together and seek the will of the Lord in community, and so that's what we're doing with our church and that could be a full-time job in itself. So, anyway, I say all of that to say I'm back and I appreciate you guys who are still with me and who have been patient with me. You guys who are still with me and who have been patient with me and um, and I, like I said, I do truly feel that this is an opportunity from the Lord to share with those that I would not come into contact with on an everyday basis but that I can encourage, because my heart is to encourage moms.

Audrey McCracken:

Being a mom is the most amazing job I've ever had. It's the hardest job I've ever had, but it's the most rewarding and it's the most soul-wrenching, heart-wrenching job ever, because you so love those that you serve. So I want to encourage you in that ministry. Being a mom is one of the greatest ministries that the Lord has given me, along with being a wife and, of course, being his daughter, which is the highest calling, is loving him and serving him, and so I just appreciate you coming in, tuning in, listening. My prayer is that I would say something that would be a blessing to you, maybe lift a burden for you, maybe help you see things in a different light. And so there you go. So today, one of the things I want to share with you, or the thing that I want to share with you, and there'll be no mystery of where it came from, after all, I've just, I've just poured out from my heart to you. I want to talk with you about moving forward and what the Lord has been talking with me about when it comes to moving forward. You know, in my quiet time I am trying to press in and hear from the Lord, and one of the things that he gave me this, I guess the last two weeks, but I've been meditating on it is Lot's wife and many of you who are listening.

Audrey McCracken:

You know the story of Lot and Lot was Abraham's nephew and it's in Genesis 19. If you don't know the story, I encourage you to go to read that. But God was going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah to go to read that. But God was going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah because Sodom and Gomorrah, they were full of evil, they were full of sin and God was going to destroy them. And God shared this with Abraham because Abraham was his friend and Abraham's nephew, lot, lived in Sodom and God and he asked the Lord Lord, are you, what if there are 50 people in Sodom, in Gomorrah, that are righteous? Will you save the city for the for them? And the Lord said yes, but he couldn't find that many. And as the story goes on, he keeps saying well, what if there's 40? No, what if there's 20? What if there's just 10? And there were not enough people in that city for the Lord not to destroy the city. There were not enough righteous people. And so God did tell Abraham he would save Lot, that he would not allow the righteous to be destroyed with the wicked. And so God sent his angels into the city as men to bring Lot and his family out. Well, lot's son-in-laws did not believe it. So the Lord, before he rained down fire and brimstone and destruction on that city, he sent in angels to rescue Lot and his wife and his two daughters. But he gave them specific instructions run out of the city, run to the hills, do not look back. But Lot's wife looked back and she was frozen into a pillar of salt. And Lot and his two daughters, they had to keep on running. They couldn't stop. They had to keep on running even though their wife, their mother, would no longer be with them. And so it was hard for them.

Audrey McCracken:

Jesus, in the New Testament, in the book of Luke it was in Luke 17, 32. Jesus says remember Lot's wife. That's all he says about her. But he was telling his disciples about the end time and what it was going to be like when he returns, or right before he returns. He said as it was in the day of Lot, so it will be in the return, in the time of my return. Then he ends that with remember Lot's wife.

Audrey McCracken:

See, there are things that are going to happen and we have to put our eyes on where God told us to go. And we have to do that. We have to put our eyes not where we've been, not where we're coming from, but where God has asked us to go. And he is telling us put your eyes to the place where I've called you, where I am delivering you to, because we have a tendency to look back and if we look back we will miss it. Now I'm not saying you can't look back at memories. I'm not saying you can't look back and think, oh, we had such a good time then or we had such a good time here.

Audrey McCracken:

The word that is used in the Hebrew in that context, where it said don't look back, was a look of longing, was a look of. " I'm longing so much that I want to go back. My heart is back there. My heart is not towards God or towards what God has asked of me my heart is in my past. And when we do that, when we refuse to let go of the past so we can walk into our future, then we forfeit our future and we can't really go back into the past anyway. You know, the past is just that it's past, it's over. So we have to, you know, be thankful for the things, the good things. We have to, you know, repent and get rid of the bad things. You know we have to deal with the things of the past, but then we've got to turn our heads towards the future and say that is my future. I'm going there. I'm going where God has told me to go, which is why it's so important for us to have a vision, which is why it's so important for us to hear from God and say Lord, what's next? What is my assignment? So I can be about your business. That's my heart is to be about your business and not my own business or somebody else's business. Father, I want to be about your business.

Audrey McCracken:

See, there are people in your future that if you don't get out of your past and move into your future, they're not going to fulfill what God has called them to fulfill, not to the same level because you're not there. You know, lot survived and his two daughters survived. They survived, but it was harder than it should have been because his wife wasn't there. And what did she have? She had wisdom, she had understanding, she had love. She had the things that make a family, that make a family a family. That's what we mamas do. You know. We have things.

Audrey McCracken:

God has given us gifts and talents and responsibilities and purpose and roles that he needs, that he needs us to carry on, not just in our family, but in our churches and our communities. And there are people in your future that need you to move forward Now. Will they survive? Probably, but will they thrive? Will they do all that God has asked of them? Maybe, but I believe that without us it will be harder than it was supposed to be for them. And you know there are people in the future that need you. You haven't yet met them, but something you say, the encouragement you give them, the example that you are as you stand before them. They need to see you make it. They need to see somebody in your position, somebody with your trials, with your struggles, with your past. They need to see you make it. They need to see you going forward after Jesus, and if you're stuck in your past, you won't be there for them, and you're part of God's plan to encourage them, to help them, to show them the way. Your future is always, always, always failed looking forward, not looking back.

Audrey McCracken:

Now there are some things that we have to deal with in the past, and I'm not saying you know that we don't ever think about the past or we don't ever deal with the past. But when we deal with things in the past, it's so we can go forward, not so we can go back. It's so we can let go of the past, not so that we can hold on to the past. One of those is forgiveness. If we do not forgive, the Bible says that we will not be forgiven. Our Father cannot forgive us. God wants us to forgive others because when we forgive others, it sets us free. When we forgive others, it sets us free, and when we are set free, when we're out of that prison of unforgiveness, then we are free to go forward into our future.

Audrey McCracken:

So sometimes we have to look back into the past because we have issues in our heart that we've not dealt with. Sometimes we have to recognize patterns that have followed us. You know that's good to look into the past and say why do I keep ending up in this place where I don't want to be? Well, sometimes we can look back and we can see the patterns, but we're not looking back so that we can go back. We're looking back so we can break, and we can recognize and break the patterns that are holding us back from the future, from doing those things that we've been called to do. Also, sometimes we have to look back so we can repent. You know there are things that we need to repent of, and repentance it doesn't mean just sobbing and crying and saying, oh, I'm so sorry. I mean there might be times that we do that. That's not a bad thing.

Audrey McCracken:

But to repent means to turn around and go the other way. That's what repentance means. It means to recognize I'm going the wrong way and sometimes we have to look in the past to see where have I been going wrong? You know what have I been doing? That is the direct opposite of what God has asked of me. And when we recognize that and we repent, we turn around and we say God, no more, I'm not going to do that anymore. That's not the way you've called me to walk. That's not the direction you've told me to go in. I'm going the opposite direction of that. I'm going away from those things that you've told me not to do. That I have to recognize it by looking at the past and seeing what I have done and letting the Holy Spirit convict me and show me. But then I turn around and I go the opposite way. I'm going to my future and I'm leaving that thing in the past, where it belongs, and that's a good thing.

Audrey McCracken:

So, yes, there are times we look in the past and we say, oh, those were great times, those were good memories. It's good to remember good days, but not with a longing that those days are so much better than what I have now. Those things are so much better than what my future is going to be. Oh, I wish, I wish no good is going to come out of that. We have to put our eyes on the future and say, lord, thank you for the past, thank you for the good, thank you for the past, thank you for the good, thank you for the bad. It made me who I am. I'm going forward.

Audrey McCracken:

I believe that my future is better than my past. That's what it comes down to is we have to believe that God has more for us in the future than he had for us in the past. And when there are really really good things in the past, sometimes that's harder for me to let go of. You know, when I came to the Lord, I came to the Lord out of a sinful lifestyle and there were things in my past that I wanted to get rid of, like I wanted the Lord to take them away. I wanted to run from them. So it was easy at that time for me to run away from my past into the loving arms of Jesus, because I believed that my future was going to be a lot better than my past.

Audrey McCracken:

But when you've walked with the Lord for a while and you've built some really good things, some really good memories, and you've seen God do some awesome things and you've seen God set you free from some awful things, and you think, oh, I'm in a good place. But now the Lord's saying it's time to move on from this good place that he set you in. That I have found that's harder for me, because I like where I am, I like how it's been, I have enjoyed my time here, and the Lord is saying okay, honey, let's go, I got something better for you. And so it really does come down to believing that God means what he says, that my future is brighter than my past, even when I really like my past, or even when I really like things back there, that I can enjoy them, I can be thankful for them. But I'm going forward because that's where Jesus is. He's walking forward, he's going on, and if I'm going to stay with him on the path, I'm going to have to follow him because I don't want him to leave me, because I don't know the way without him. And he loves us and he wants the best for us. So many times we think we know what's best for us and we don't have a clue. If we knew that we'd be God. We don't see the future. He's the only one who knows what the future holds, so we have to trust that it's better with him. Amen.

Audrey McCracken:

I hope this has been an encouragement to you today. Like I said in the beginning, I so thank you for being patient with me and hanging on. I am no longer a homeschool mom. There's a grieving process in that, but I know that in the future he's got good things and thank you for being a part of my future. Thank you for being here and um and being a part of what you know, letting me encourage you as a mom. That's a blessing to me and it gives me a reason to think oh Lord, what good things do you have ahead? You know, and he loves you, so he loves me, so he's so good to us.

Audrey McCracken:

Father, we just thank you that you never leave us and you never forsake us. That, lord, you are faithful to the end, and one day, when we get to the end of this road, we are going to see you face to face and we can ask you all those questions and you will give us real answers. But until that day, we trust you. We trust you with our future, we trust you with our past and, lord, we look forward. We remember Lot's wife and we look forward to you and to the future that you have for us and for the good things there, and we say yes and amen to them and to you, in Jesus name, amen.