Your address is an important possession. It establishes your residence—where you live. It communicates stability to your creditors, and it proclaims a sense of legitimacy to the community around you by saying, “I live here.” It enables you to receive vital information by phone and by mail. Without an address, a person is considered “homeless.”

An address is essential and even more important in the spiritual realm as well.  Every believer’s address is “in Christ,” but not every believer lives at that address.  Many have received a letter of occupancy, and the O.K. to move in, but most have never taken up residence at that address.  That is, they are “in Christ” positionally, but practically they are somewhere else.

Most Christians exist in a fantasy world of “What If.” “What If” is a zip code tacked on to an address known as “What Was,” better known as the past.  They are trapped in the past by a wound, a disappointment, an untruth, an indiscretion, a sin, an unforgiven hurt, or a thousand other mistakes made by them or committed against them. You may be living at “What If.” What if my father and mother had not divorced? Or what if my husband or wife had not left me? Or what if that man had not molested me? Or what if I had not been late to that interview? Or what if I had not been lied to? Or what if a thousand other real, imagined or perceived things had not happened?

Instead, there is a better way. Instead of “What If,” spend your means, your energy, and your time on “What Is.” “What Is” is the zip code at the end of the “What Can Be” address. You will never move into “What Can Be” until you choose to deal and lay to rest “What Was.”

The enemy will use “What If” as long as you allow him to visit “What Was” with you. Understand this; he won’t just visit when you want to go there. He will take you kicking and screaming against your will at the most inopportune times to accomplish the most damage in your life. “What Was” is the address of a prison where the only thing you can envision for the future is “What If.” It’s living life while looking in the rearview mirror.

God’s way is far better. Those things in your past are real, they did hurt, and they have affected you, but they can be dealt with. “What Is” requires coming to grips with the reality of the situation. It means you must face it, deal with it, walk away, and leave it. It requires a partnership between you and God. You must choose to face the problem and at that moment, even in your weakness, God will give the ability, the answer, or the action to overcome the past. Then you must walk away and leave it with God. When you deal with it, God buries it, but be very careful in answering the devil’s invitation to revisit that gravesite because his purpose is to trick you into exhuming that memory’s remains so he can breathe death back into the wound, the hurt, or the pain.

You must live in “What Is” if you ever plan to walk in “What Can Be.” Your destiny “in Christ’ is fixed in God’s mind, but your ability to experience the joy of that destiny is determined by the address where you choose to pick up your mail.