Looking Forward; Looking Back

The lay speaker at church yesterday did a rather interesting thing. He used texts from Genesis and Luke, texts describing the death of Lot's wife (because she looked back) and Jesus' reflections on what happens when we look back rather than forward. The church we attended was in the middle of a pastoral change; the old pastor had departed and the new one had not yet arrived. The people were uncertain about what the future would bring and he was encouraging them not to look back on what had been done but to look forward toward what could be done.

We are designed to look forward; after all, our eyes are in the front of our heads, not the back. When we do not look where we are going, we stand a chance of falling, running into things, or simply grinding to a stop. I am older today than I was yesterday; I am moving forward, and there is nothing I can do about it! It is true that we build the present and the future on the experiences of the past, but we do not need to be stuck there. We make mistakes, for we are human, but we can build on those mistakes if we continue always to move forward.

The problem comes when the past becomes our focus. We age and move forward in one sense, but in another sense, we simply stagnate. Jesus speaks often of living water, and living water is water that moves. Water that sits eventually dies.

They say that the optimist is the one who looks forward and the pessimist is the one who looks backward. I have to admit, in the language of "South Pacific," that I am a "cockeyed optimist." The future is a great adventure, an adventure that will never end. In the Twelve Step recovery program, we often say that we do not regret the past, but we also do not shut the door on it. Remembering what has happened to me does not constitute looking backward! Those experiences are the foundation on which God has helped me to build a wonderful life!

So on I go! Onward and upward, my eyes always on the prize! May that never change!!