You need to turn from your past,
and you need to pray
that the Lord will forgive
the evil intent of your heart.
—Acts 2:22
The Voice Bible
Tom Buchanan from The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald stands out as a figure given to evil—racist, adulterous, arrogant, and proud. He believes in his own superiority, though it is ultimately superficial and performative. He ruins lives yet remains unrepentant and blind to his own moral decay. But this is only fiction, right? And yet, behind every story there are truths played out by the human race.
There’s a quiet sorrow in living a life that feels off-course. You may not admit it out loud, but something gnaws at you in the early hours or when you’re alone with your thoughts. Perhaps you’ve carried anger too long. Perhaps you’ve nurtured resentment, or worse, justified it. You might even feel the world owes you something, a debt for your pain, your struggle, your story.
But what if that belief is untrue?
What if, deep down, you’ve been hiding from something more difficult to face: the harm you’ve caused, the mistakes you’ve buried, the sense of entitlement you never earned? Maybe a parent overindulged you, perhaps with good intentions. But somewhere along the way, you came to believe that others should bend to your desires, that your pain justified badness. That your privilege was proof of worth.
But true worth isn’t inherited. It isn’t given. It’s forged, by how we treat others, how we respond when we are wrong, how we grow from the truth instead of running from it.
And the truth is this: you cannot be happy while hiding from yourself.
The world does not owe us peace when we have withheld it from others. It cannot gift us joy when we trade in bitterness. And worst of all, we cannot stand tall before God while clinging to a heart that harbours hatred, manipulation, or unrepented harm.
But this is not the end. This moment—right now—can be the beginning of something far better.
You were made for more. Not for secrets, not for self-deception, not for a shallow sense of superiority. You were made to love and be loved. To be at peace with God and at peace with your neighbour. And yes, even to forgive yourself once you’ve truly faced what needs to be faced.
The Bible says God is near to the broken-hearted (Psalm 34:18). That includes those broken by their own doing. It is not weakness to weep for what you’ve done, it’s the first step to becoming whole.
You cannot rewrite your past, but you can change your course. You can own your wrongs. You can apologize, even if forgiveness isn’t granted. You can stop blaming others and start becoming the person you were always meant to be.
This journey requires humility. It requires honesty. But it also offers something incomparable: peace of mind, and the quiet joy of a life lived right.
Don’t wait for the world to change. Change your heart. Change your path. And you will find that happiness, the real kind, the kind that holds up even in storms, has been waiting for you all along.
God has not given up on you. Don’t give up on yourself. Today is a good day to begin again.
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Verse quoted from The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.