Looking Forward

When my children were young, I often found myself wishing I had eyes in the back of my head. There are few things more difficult than driving down the highway at 65 mph while trying to mediate a noisy who-touched-who-first conflict between three kids in the back seat. However, as much as we might wish otherwise, God has constructed human beings so that we cannot look forward while looking back.

Remember Lot’s wife (Gen. 19:26)? God had granted Lot’s family an escape from the judgment He was bringing on Sodom and Gomorrah. As they were fleeing the wickedness of those cities and their impending destruction, Lot’s wife turned back with a nostalgic glance and she became a pillar of salt – forever suspended between her past and her future.

There’s an important lesson here. Just as it is impossible to look forward if we’re looking backward, we can’t embrace our future if we live in the past. Christians often test this principle. We attempt to sustain or perpetuate past blessings of God or ways He has worked previously. We try to maintain some watershed point of spiritual breakthrough.

The problem is, God is always moving forward – leading us to greater blessing and higher purpose.

Now I’m not talking about memories here. God often instructed His people to construct memorials to His past power-workings among them. But enjoying precious memories of how God has previously intersected our lives is not the some as failing to advance toward the next intersection.

As you cross the threshold into a new episode of partnership with God today, I encourage you not to allow yourself to become paralyzed in that endeavor by longing for the ways God has led you in the past. Be willing to enjoy the memory of those days while making room in your heart for God to do new things, use new methods, and lead you in new directions. Allow Him to make some new memories.