I recently heard a retelling of a famous story that goes like this: Two monks are walking from one village to another, when they discover that the bridge going over a certain river has been washed away. They also discover a young woman sitting by the bank of the river waiting for someone to help her across. This created a dilemma for the monks because their religious beliefs did not allow them to interact with women, let alone touch them. But the elder monk picked up the woman and carried her across the river. After leaving the woman, the two monks continued on their way. After an hour of walking in silence, the younger monk asked his elder how he could disregard their beliefs to carry that woman across the river. The elder monk replied, "I dropped the woman off on the other side of the river, why are you still carrying her?"

In our current sermon series, we have been talking about how to live "Heaven-influenced-lives", and one of our greatest obstacles to doing that is refusing to let go of the past. Many of us are still carrying the weight of past failures, sins, and hurts, but one of the spiritual disciplines needed on our Heaven-bound journey is the discipline to let go and move forward. Consider the words of Paul in Philippians 3:13-14: "Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus."

What do you need to let go of in order to move forward to your heavenly call?