Is it ever okay to look back?
by John Fischer

Anyone who puts a hand to the plow and then looks back is not fit for the Kingdom of God. Luke 9:62 (NLT)

Is it ever okay to look back?

There is a fine line between gaining strength from how God has met us in the past, and getting lost in romanticized states of nostalgia. It’s not always easy to tell the difference.

Last weekend I had a chance to go back to a camp where I began my singing/songwriting career and experienced serving in a ministry role for the first time. It is a place pregnant with memories for me. These memories were also from time of heightened spiritual awareness in our culture that we now refer to as the Jesus movement. A whole youth culture it seemed was literally flying high on Jesus. Nothing has come close to those days since.

After the concert a man came up to me and handed me a CD. It was a tape recording of me singing my first collection of songs made in the stairwell of a church nearby in the summer of 1968. I say “allegedly” because I barely remember doing this. I took the CD home and listened to it and it was me all right. Songs and feelings both forgotten came rushing back.

What value is this to me now? Not much if I attempt to stay there. It was almost hard to hear the angst in the heart of a 21-year-old that seemed so far away now. It made me wonder if some things are not meant to be recorded.

But there is meaning and usefulness in the past. It comes through returning to places and times when God has met us is significant ways. In the Old Testament these were called memorial stones – altars erected so that God’s faithfulness at a certain event in history could be remembered and the stories passed on to future generations. Such a visit to the past gives us renewed strength and courage to face the future. If God met us then and got us this far, then He can show us how to live in this present age.

But if we go back to try and recreate the past and hold onto it as long as possible, this is not productive. We never will be able to go back to an earlier time. Plows don’t plow backwards. They only dig ahead into open fields. So do God’s purposes for us.

So if you go back, go back to mark something meaningful in your life, where God met you, and use the experience to renew your current love for Him. Just don’t stay long there. The demands of today are different than those of yesterday, and the world never stops changing.

PDL