Should We Look Back?
Here we are, still in the early days of a new year. I’m not even going to ask if you’ve kept those resolutions you made looking forward to goals for this year!
In fact, in this post, I want to consider looking the other direction: to the past. In a Wednesday night devotional, Jeremiah referenced the account found in Joshua 4 of the Israelites taking stones from the middle of the Jordan to construct a memorial. This was to give their children something to “look back” and have a visual, concrete reminder of God’s leading in their lives.
As Jeremiah used the idea of “looking back,” for some reason, my mind went to an account where someone was told specifically to not look back. In Genesis 19, Lot and his family are told to escape and not look behind themselves as they go when God planned to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah.
So why is looking back sometimes condemned by God and other times done under His direction? In looking at these two examples, I think the answer lies in the “why” of the looking. In the first example, the people were looking back to remember God and His love and care for them. In the second, Lot’s wife was lingering and looking back to a wicked city so abominable to God that He destroyed it in such a way that nothing ever grew there again (Deut. 29:23).
Now, this is not a hard leap to make, but we have a verse in the New Testament that tells us exactly where to keep our eyes, whether looking back to learn from previous experiences or looking forward in anticipation:
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:1-2)
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AUTHOR: Amber Tatum
