For the past few weeks I have thought about tearing down my garden fence and putting things away for the season. However, I kept thinking 'maybe something will grow if I give it more time.' Yet it has become quite clear that the growing season has past.

            This past weekend I was standing in the garden looking around at how much work it would take to do all this and get everything put away, it looked overwhelming to me. It was going to take a lot of tearing down and taking apart and putting away. As I stood there thinking about all this something I had heard recently jumped up in my spirit.

            The other day I was watching a show on HGTV about remodeling a home. At one point they took a sledgehammer and began to tear down a wall. One of the construction workers said 'I love this part, when things start getting torn down that means change is on the horizon and change will take place.' I thought it was a powerful statement at the time and while I stood in my garden it came up in my spirit 'when things start getting torn down, change is coming.' That was all I needed to hear.

            Lately I am ready for change. Not just the hope of it but the manifestation of it and if tearing down is what must happen first then let's get on with it. You see, God always works with me this way...if he has things planned for me in the spiritual it will directly flow in the natural. Therefore I knew when God brought that statement to my spirit he was showing me that as I tore down some things or allowed some things to be torn down in my life that change would come, it was on the horizon and it would certainly come.

            I began my task and finished it so much quicker than I imagined I would, I knew God was in it. Then he brought a scripture to mind; our scripture, the one we use for the ministry. Isaiah 43:18-19. "Do not remember the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth; shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert."

            God has been talking to me a lot lately about letting go of the former things and today I realized that I could not grab hold of the new thing, until I refuse to remember the former things. To remember means to continue to bring to mind, to think about over and over and to keep a record of a thing.

            I think many times people fail to move into the new thing God has for them because they can't let go of or stop thinking about the former things.

            For you the 'former things' may be things that were bad, they may be some things that happened to you that you can't figure out why God allowed it to happen. You simply have to move past those things. You have to come to a place where you say 'God I don't understand your way or your path in this but I release it to you and I accept your way, I know you have a good plan for me, a plan for good and not for evil, I believe that about you and I accept and embrace your plan for my life.'

            Maybe you can't quit thinking about some great things that happened in your past and you can't figure out what went wrong and why it isn't that way any longer. Whichever thing it is that is your former thing, it's time to stop keeping a record of it. It's time to move past it. It's time to embrace the new thing God has for you. But you can't embrace the new thing until you forget the former things and sometimes that means a tearing down.

            Most of the time before a new thing comes into my life, things get torn down and the thing that gets torn down is usually my mindset or a way I have of thinking about a certain thing or a certain series of events. When I allow God to show me His perspective and His plan, my way of thinking changes...and then change comes and the new thing begins.

            Today I encourage you to REMEMBER NOT the former things. CONSIDER THEM NOT. Give them no more place in your life. Lay that season, that thing, that time at the feet of God and move on...move on into the new thing. It is yours for the taking.