Leaving the Past Behind
It is 7:14 in the morning, and a man is pulling out of the driveway of the house he has lived in for twenty years. The back seat is packed full. The last box is wedged in beside a lamp, because that was the only spot left.
He gets to the end of the street, stops at the sign, and looks up into the rearview mirror. There is the house. There is the porch. There is the tree his kids used to climb when they were little.
He turns onto the main road, and then he looks back again. And again. A few seconds later the tires hit the rumble strip, and that sound snaps his eyes forward. He had been so busy looking at where he came from that he was drifting off the road in front of him.
The rearview mirror is useful. It can show you where you have been. But it was never designed to show you where you are going.
Paul put it this way:
Philippians 3:13
“Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead.”
Some of us keep staring backward. We keep looking at the mistake, the loss, or the relationship. We keep looking at the season we wish we could get back. And while our eyes are fixed on what used to be, we start drifting off the road God has put in front of us.
That doesn't mean everything behind you should be forgotten. There are things back there worth remembering, and there are lessons worth carrying with you. But God still has road in front of you.
So learn from what is behind you. Then put your eyes forward.
You cannot drive into what God has next while staring at what used to be.
