Thoughts from the Thicket
San Jacinto News Times - December 2007
By Dr. Don Shannon

I just received a notice advising me of a meeting I am to attend on January 10, 2008.   On first reading I thought someone had made a mistake, but I quickly realized that the real error was in my thinking.  My mind wasn’t anywhere near New Year’s mode when I read that notice.   Where did the year go?  You’ve probably asked yourself that same question lately.  A few more days and January, 2008 will be here, and a few days after that January will be gone and February will have arrived, and so goes the cycle of time.  As an elderly man once said to me, “The older you get, the days get longer and the years get shorter.”

New Years is generally celebrated as both a time for looking back and looking forward.  Looking back can be both good and bad.   Continually looking back prevents us from reaching forward to those things which lie ahead.  In Genesis 19:17 we read where God, as He was about to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, commanded Lot and his family to flee and not look back, but keep going forward, to push on to those things ahead of them.  Lot’s wife, however, as we are told in verse 26, just had to take one more look back.  As a result, she was transformed into a pillar of salt.

When we continually look back at what is behind us, and ignore what lies ahead, we too will lose our lives as we become lost in the past.  Jesus emphasized the importance of focusing on the future instead of the past when He said, “No man having put his hand to the plow, and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:62).  Those who look back to the point that they seem to dwell there endanger the progress of the kingdom of God. 

This was the case with the children of Israel when they carried the bones of Joseph about with them as a reminder of what had been.  John the Baptist cautioned the Sadducees and Pharisees about holding on to the past when he said to them, “Don’t say within yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father because I can tell you that God is able to raise up children unto Abraham from these stones.’”

This isn’t to say that remembering the past is all bad, there are times when it is good to look back and recall what has been.  Deuteronomy 32:7 advises, “Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations.”   When you look back you can expect to see the good, the bad, and the ugly, but above them all you must “Remember all the way which the Lord your God has led you” (Deuteronomy 8:20).  We need to remember this as individuals and as a nation; blessings are not self-made, they come from God.

Often, however, when the trials are over and God has delivered us, we forget what He has done, and attribute the victory to our own efforts.  As we approach another year, we need to look back, count our blessings, and then look forward, remembering also the words of Proverbs 29:18 “Where there is no vision, the people perish.”  The year 2008 will be glorious for those who love the Lord.  It may not be easy, but it will be glorious; for every day, come what may, is better than the day before for those who walk in the Spirit.