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You can't....without crippling your mind, and destroying your sense of being.

Without a past, we would have no frame of reference, and no context and sense of continuity by which to gage our growth in Christ.

Paul's statement is struggled with by Christians constantly, and is difficult to accept as being possible for them. Although it can be agonizing and heartbreaking, we can learn to handle the past. But it has often been our "schoolmaster" to lead us to Christ, by revealing where we are now. The past is a benchmark for understanding the present. The past teaches us what not to do and what to do...and subsequently, what the Holy Spirit will do in us. Your past and mine is a mystery known only to Christ and our personal relationship to Him. But the past can serve a great purpose as we grow up in Christ:

"Never be afraid when God brings back the past. Let memory have its way. It is a minister of God with its rebuke and chastisement and sorrow. God will turn the "might have been" into a wonderful culture for the future" - Oswald Chambers

Paul considered his relationship to the law as a thing in the past. If he had not pondered and examined his past, he would have had no way to measure his growth in the image of Christ. But, he also said it is a "schoolmaster" from the past that led him to Christ. He knew after his conversion how to look at his past. He saw in his past that which led him to believe in Christ. We may or may not have the law in our past, but all of us have a past - good or bad - that helped bring, or drive us to belief in Jesus Christ.

Realizing this Paul said: “I have been crucified with Christ [in Him I have shared His crucifixion]; it is no longer I who live, but Christ (the Messiah) lives in me; and the life I now live in the body I live by faith in (by adherence to and reliance on and complete trust in) the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” (Galatians 2:20)

God gave us the capacity for recollection of our past. Let us strive to see in that memory stream the reason for where we are, and why and who we are. In this way, the past will become a companion along with the Holy Spirit who uses our past to help us understand and embrace the future as it comes. Allow your past to be your "schoolmaster" to guide you in your attitude toward events in your life.

Some day, we will no longer have or need the past as we do today. Our past was lived by a law of conditions in our lives at the time, most of which we did not choose or create. Circumstances of birth timing, and circumstances dictated by the settings of our past tend to rule us. But the Apostle Paul had come to understand how to handle his past, which was completely different from ours, but his way of how to deal with the past can apply to all Christians:

"Now before the faith came, we were perpetually guarded under the Law, kept in custody in preparation for the faith that was destined to be revealed (unveiled, disclosed), Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster." Galatians 3:23-25

The "schoolmaster" of our past, whatever it was, we no longer need to allow to dictate the now. As we occupy our minds with our future, the past (our "schoolmaster") will slowly fade, replaced with the joy and anticipation of our future! Allow the future to dictate your past. Not the other way around.

"Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." - Philippians 3:13

"Word from Scotland" from Sandy Shaw

When Deep Darkness Falls - Shine Jesus Shine