Looking Back

We are in a busy store and there my son is walking forward and looking backwards. You can imagine that is not the best way to navigate congested aisles full of haggard shoppers. I patiently (OK, maybe not so patiently) reminded him to look forward, but he keeps looking back and running into people.

This episode reminded me of a couple of stories in the Bible. Remember Lot's wife, God told her to flee Sodom and not to look back, she did and was turned into a pillar of salt. And then Paul wrote in Philippians 3:13 "Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead..." I thought I could use these verses as a lesson to my son about looking back while walking forward, but they really didn't apply.

But they do apply to me and speak volumes. They remind me that if I spend time looking back, recalling past mistakes, reliving past glory's, replaying past conversations, I certainly can't be present in the here and now. I can't be having deep, thoughtful conversations in hushed tones with my friends, or reveling in a glorious epiphany, or making new mistakes or even the same old ones. If I casually glance back and learn from my mistakes, or reminisce without wistfully wishing I were 20 years younger and 20 pounds lighter, then looking back is not without merit. It's when I look back longing for what was or what might have been, that I lose out on what is...Today!