My family and I are getting ready to take a road trip next week to go visit some old friends (even though I'm surely not old enough to have "old friends!"). I'm sure a good portion of our visit will involve revisiting memories, reliving good times, and even paying respect to past mountains we have climbed together.
Our past is the foundation upon which our present and our future are built. Going back and looking at where we've been can be entertaining, sometimes humbling, often frightening, and healthy. It's important, though, that we don't get stuck there.
We have to remember the past is past.
I can't wait to see our friends. They are still a vital and vibrant part of our lives, important to our present and future as well where we've been. I want to go back and remember the good ol' days when we were together all the time, solving all the world's problems at 2:00 in the morning around a kitchen table munching on monster cookies. I want to go back there, and I'm sure we will.
It's important, though, that we don't stay there.
As much as I'd like things to be as they once were, they are not. Distance and circumstances ordained by God have caused the river of life to flow onward. An old proverb says that you can never step in the same river twice.
That's a truism of life.
Some people get stuck in the past.
That's not healthy. Some parts of our past are poison, whether it be old girlfriends wrecking marriages, old wounds reopened, or old habits re-awakened. Get caught up in those traps, and your future can be just as dead as your past.
Other times we get stuck in remembering the glories of days gone by, thinking no future could possibly be as fulfilling as what we have already lived. That, too, is a pit with a soft bottom. If you believe the future can never be as good as the past was, it won't be.
There's a balance somewhere in the middle.
It's good to remember our past. There are lessons there, fond memories, encouragements, accomplishments, and laughter. Revisit those often. In every past you will also find pitfalls and dangers. Avoid getting caught in their grasp.
Visit your past, but never try to live there. It is who you were, not who you are. Those two people may be very different, or indeed very similar, but they are certainly not the same.
As Christians, our hope is in the glorious future provided and promised by God through His Son. We learn from the past, gain encouragement and wisdom from where we've been, but always our hope is before us.
If you spend too much time looking in the rear-view mirror, you just might miss a glimpse of how great the future will be.
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