Do you want God to use your past for good? Then you have to embrace the experiences of your life—the good ones, the bad ones, the shameful ones, the right ones, the wrong ones, the happy ones, and the sad ones—and stop running from your past.

Galatians 3:4 says, “Were all your experiences wasted? I hope not!” (NCV).

Don’t run away from your past! Because of pain, many people deny their past, ignore their past, discount their past, regret their past, or resent their past. They revise their past and make up stories because they’re happier dealing with a lie than the pain of the past. But when you’re in denial, God can’t use your experiences for good.

God can use every experience in your life for good, but you’ve got to stop running from them; you have to embrace them. Maybe your parents weren’t very loving, maybe you weren’t that great in school, maybe you weren’t the football captain or the prom queen. So what? They’re your experiences. Own them.

Stop pushing the bad experiences out of your mind. Instead, you’ve got to remember them. Deuteronomy 11:2 says, “Remember today what you have learned about the LORD through your experiences with him” (GNT).

In other words, remember the lessons your experiences have taught you. How do you do that? The best way to remember the lessons and experiences of your life is to keep a journal. I’m not talking about a diary. A diary is a daily list of what you did: “Today I went to the store and bought milk.” With a journal, you don’t necessarily write in it every day. But every time you have an important lesson, you write it down so you won’t forget it: “That was painful. I learned that the hard way. I don’t want to forget that.”

To remember what you’ve learned about God, keep a journal. Then you can look back and remember what God taught you. In the dark times of your life, you can be encouraged and know that God is still working for your good.