How many times have you heard someone named a brother or sister (or, admit it, yourself) say "Well, that ___(insert sin/destructive lifestyle here)____ time of my life made me the person I am today, so how can I look down at it?"I've said it myself before, though it was a long long time ago, only once since naming the name of Christ, and I felt extremely weird about saying it after I said it.  And though I don't remember if I realized why it felt so awkward at the time, it was simply because that mindset isn't Scriptural.

Unfortunately for us in America, it *is* so much a part of our "cultural Christianity" that it "sounds" like it should be Scriptural, so many people just dismiss their initial unease about it and move on.  But in reality, taking on that kind of mindset can be very damaging to a person's walk.

Now before anyone swings the pendulum too far the other direction, I'm not suggesting that people walk around continuously beating themselves up about the kind of sinner they used to be -- after all, Jesus has paid the price for it, Glory to God!, and we are no longer under condemnation if we are in Christ Jesus.  I'm merely suggesting that taking the approach that "oh, that's ok, it made
me who I am today" is a bit deluded, a dash untrue, and a good measure of not too healthy.

You see, when a person starts looking at their (negative) past as though it somehow had a (positive) molding force that contributed to their (positive) present outcome, they're doing two things:

*First, they're failing to remember -- much as the children of Israel did -- that "Egypt" (as the Bible often refers to the flesh) was not merely a place filled with garlic, leeks and onions, but was most prominently a place filled with harsh labors and cruel taskmasters, a period of their history when their burden was tremendously heavy and their desire for deliverance was intense.

*Second, they're taking their positive resent outcome and attributing it (at least in part) to the negative things that in reality were actively destroying them.  Even the noblest of efforts to redeem that by saying "Yes, but without doing that ______, I never would have come to God, so it can't be looked at as totally
bad" fall short in that they still fail to attribute the glory to God and continue to look back at the bad as though it were really the good.

The thing that perhaps I really hate worst about this saying we so thoughtlessly slip from our lips is the effect it has upon those we're talking to.  When we're talking with other believers, the effect is bad enough -- sometimes un-comprehended confusion, sometimes an "ah, that makes sense" that leads to them saying the same thing, sometimes their own conscience being seared on certain matters -- but when we're talking with unbelievers, the effects can be completely catastrophic.

A person who has yet to come to Christ who comes to believe that Christians believe that way will start to look at their own past the same way (because it's easily digestible by the conscience), yet when a Christian then tries to discuss the need for a Savior with them, they often don't see the need -- after all, they've adopted the same "moral worldview" (i.e. "do these things, don't do those things, etc.") that the Christian people they've talked to have, and since they've been prepped by the previous Christians to not look at their past sins as "sins", there's really no need in their mind for someone to save them from their sins, at least not actively.  And that's downright tragic.

So instead, the next time the topic of your past comes up, be honest -- tell people straight up "I didn't think my sin was that bad at the time, but it was an offense to God and I needed a Savior just as much as anyone else did, and but for the Grace of God those things I was involved in would have destroyed me long before now".  This way, not only are *YOU* keeping proper perspective of what your past sins really look like, you're giving a very accurate picture to the other person of where you would be had God not intervened, and that can *only* have good outcomes. ;)