By looking forward i mean not living hypnotized by the past, a life-style of always looking back. God had some hard things to say to Israel for pining about their past, whining about “what was” so much that it dictated their “what is”, and they lost sight of their “what will be”. God called it, “Hearkening back to a former time.” Let’s understand, i don’t mean never looking back, but i mean to let the past be past and not give the past anymore power over our lives than it already has. Looking forward, ask yourself: where is my life in the now? Where is life happening for you? Is God driving with His God-directions and God-purposes, or, maybe, like many of us, we really have no clue, or we answer “Yes”, but really mean “i wish”? You know, if we’re always looking back it’ll give us a terrible neck ache. We can’t drive forward if we’re always looking in the rear view mirror. Going forward is nearly impossible if we’re watching behind us.

Almost, pretty much, just about, for the most part, if, maybe, might have been…yea but, yea but if… …if… if only… Might have been… Might have been if only.

In the things we sow and reap, There are the sowings of things that, never in this life, would we wish to grow at our feet. But yet, more and more often, i see the seeds of regret that grow around our feet like vines that tangle us and cause our attention to shift from important matters to spending more and more time untangling ourselves from these “vines”, strangling vines, ropes impeding forward momentum, vines of distraction and the more we are distracted the more we are distracted. Many people like to wander in the cemetery of past errors and old wrongs, rereading old headstones and epitaphs of the things we think we have “reckoned dead”, moaning over old wrongs saying over and over, “Oh, i so wish i hadn’t done that,” but never really dealing with what’s in their heart and letting it all go. Regret often paralyzes hope, corrodes the connection between vision and purpose, and becomes a dead weight to our forward momentum. This is not healthy; it is what i call a chronic gastrointestinal turbulence of the soul.

In the silence of late night, the gray place between awake and asleep, we play the video of what “might have been”, but when it plays in a constant loop it makes us weak because it over-emphasizes the past at the expense of the present. How expensive is your present? Would you trade “now” to go back to “then”? Do you really think “then” would be all you remember it to be, or is it just a group of selective memories?

A man said to me once, many years ago while weeping over his life, “Sometimes, i seem to spend the bulk of my time wishing God would do something other than what He is doing.” For me, his words were such a profound idea to ponder.

Years later, i think of Israel, in the desert, the wilderness, a place of amazing miracles, a season of walking with God, and over and over they hearkened back to a former time, seemingly spending the bulk of their time wishing God would do something other than what He was doing. Israel was in what i call the “Season of The Golden Calf”, and i wonder if maybe we, in America aren’t living out a giant repeat of the story of Israel in some odd fashion. Looking back, always wishing we were anywhere but here, unbelieving of God’s promise of tomorrow, bitter about today.

OH, and the colors….the colors of “might have been” are always so brilliant! The reds, and blues, the crimson and purples, the yellows & pales…the white sails of distant ships are always full and whiter than our own, and the green of far away hills are always greener. Might have been always looks SOOO good from a distance.

We need to refocus. But what, or who will we refocus on? i think what Paul said in Philippians 3 is the supreme focus, “… forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead. I press on toward the goal to win the (supreme and heavenly) prize to which God in Christ Jesus is calling us upward.”

Let us go OUT of the graveyard of “might have been” and “if only” to go forward. We are not people of our history, but people of our destiny. As best we can let us take seriously what we sow; let us leave the graveyard of old things where regret grows around our feet … let it go; let the dead be dead and let us catch our breath in a new direction. Don’t just turn in a new direction, more better, come home! Refocus to be forward thinking, forward moving with forward momentum. Love the Lord you God with all your breathing, all your thinking, all your feeling, and all your forward momentum. And at that, i say: Selah, my friends, think on it.