Okay, let me just give you some decisions now. So what I'm speaking on today, I may have to finish it next week: Destiny Decisions. Now these are personal choices, personal decisions that you make and they have eternal consequences for your life. And I thought about what some of these may be and I've come up with a number of things, which as I've thought about my own life these are absolutely crucial parts of actually forging your life forwards so it has a sense of purpose and it also accomplishes something on the journey. So let me give them you, here it is, number one. Let go the past. You must choose to say no to bitterness and resentment over how you've been treated. Let me just talk a little about that. In Hebrews 12:15 it talks about the grace of God; Let no man fall from the grace of God, and a root of bitterness springing up in you defile many.
Every person coming into this world has some hardships and pains, difficulties and setbacks. It is a part of life. For some of you I know the family situations you've come from; you've come from situations where there was hurt or pain; for some of you great families, others there was abuse in the families. Some families were really wonderful to be there; others were dysfunctional. Some of you have had conflicts in relationships, people let you down, people maybe you gave your heart to and they betrayed you in various kinds of ways. Listen, this is life. Life is like that. But when this happens to you there are two things that happen within you and it's what happens inside you that determines what's going to happen ahead of you. The first thing is you get hurt and wounded by some of the things that happen.
I can think of many events that have happened in my life that have deeply wounded and hurt me, took me quite some time to get over it. The second thing is when you get hurt you believe certain things. You begin to form beliefs; you can never trust any more or you can never trust a leader, or don't trust this or - you begin to start to inside formulate beliefs because you've been wounded and hurt. Now let me tell you this. If you don't resolve those things from your past they will defile your present and steal your destiny, absolutely. I have seen people and because of bitterness they could never make a marriage or a family work; because of hurts and wounds they could never make their life really work. Why? They could never rise to full potential because they never made the choice, the destiny decision I'm going to face what hurt me and who hurt me and how badly I'm hurt. I'm going to forgive. I'm going to release. I'm going to bless and I will move on because I was made for greater things.
You can choose to live in regret and resentment. You can choose to live remembering the injustices you've suffered and all the defeats you've had, or you can choose to forgive, to bless and to grow and to come forward and find in the future that it was all part of God's plan for your life. What you thought could have sunk you now becomes a springboard to help others. Recently I went away for a week, 10 days, I was up in Asia. One place that I went to was in Singapore and there was a family there which I'd met many years ago and their eldest daughter committed suicide. Now I've never had a child commit suicide but I've had a trauma in our family that caused tremendous grief, and I knew exactly what they would be feeling. I was able to go alongside them and to talk with them, and over two days help every member of the family walk forward.