“Provoking Christian Insights” series

Note: I’ve been away from the keyboard for a while due to the flood and a trip to the east coast. JC

Part 14

“Don’t dwell in the past”

I love steam trains. I have two cars over 24 years old. I’ve written over 1,000 newspaper articles about the power of the past. I started a preservation society to save old buildings and preserve culture. My wife things I live in the past. I tell her that I really don’t live in the past, but rather, have a healthy respect for it.

This weekend the guys are having a car show bringing out all their old-time cars. They (some of them) would rather sit around talking “cars” than attend church, or about anything else. You’ve probably known someone whose mind spent its time dwelling in the past, or someone who feels there is no tomorrow that they have lived all their best moments.

We need to take a look at Philippians 3: 13, 14; “FORGETTING those things that are BEHIND, and reaching for those things that are before, I press for those things that are the high calling of Jesus Christ

There really isn’t anything that we can do about yesterday. It’s over, gone, worth remembering but not place to dwell. Sure, I like steam trains and like to go where they are. I like the smell of steam and coal, and I like the sound of the whistle and the chuff-chuff of the moving engine. I like the idea of sitting beside the radio listening to the old radio programs, and spinning tales about old time Bucyrus where we live. I love my old Fiat cars and drive them until they wear out, but I don’t dwell in the time in 1960 when I sold them. I just like the cars.

The fun of my first dates still bring back a smile, and the thoughts of being athletic and strong are just thoughts, but I remember them fondly knowing that those days are in the past. The writer of Ecclesiastes 3 reminds us that there is a time to be born, and a time to die, a time to plan and a time to pluck up what is planted …a time to kill and a time to heal; a time to break down and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; and a time to mourn and a time to dance; a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, a time to refrain from embrace; a time to seek and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to throw away; a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for ware and a time for peace.

Pastor Ray La Salle spoke about this in church recently saying; “There are skeletons in the past we must forget. Forget the bad. Forget the good. Don’t dwell on things from the past. Press on for the mark.” I think we can get bogged down in remembering the past and looking the wrong way.

Lott’s wife was told not to look back … when she did she turned into a pillar of salt. Why was she told not to look back? I’m sure that my remembering those wonderful days of yesteryear and the smells of homemade pie and grandma’s house won’t send me to hell …but dreaming of grandma’s chili or apple pie won’t make me some. The only thing that will make new memories for me is moving ahead.

Pastor LaSalle referred to living in the past as having anchors holding you down. Some anchors, he said, were problems in the past that were not dealt with completely. Some anchors were emotional scars that have not healed. Some scars were those of defeat.

Do you have any anchors from the past holding you down?

How do you get healthy?

Paul writes in Ephesians 4:22-24; “You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.”

Many of us have taken “self-help” courses persuading us to seek within our own hearts the answers to life’s many problems. That process is severely flawed. Jeremiah 17:9 tells us that the “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?”

Robert Murray McCheyne wrote; “Learn much of the Lord Jesus. For every look at yourself, take ten looks at Christ. He is altogether lovely. Such infinite majesty, yet such meekness and grace, and all for sinners-even the chief! Live much in the smiles of God. Bask in His beams. Feel His all seeing eye settled on you in love, and repose in His almighty arms. Cry after divine knowledge, and lift up your voice for understanding. Seek her as silver, and search for her as for hidden treasure, according to Proverbs 2:4. Let your soul be filled with a heart-ravishing sense of the sweetness and excellency of Christ and all that is in Him. Let the Holy Spirit fill every chamber of your heart and there will be no room for folly or the world or Satan, or the flesh.”

The one who created us is the only one from whom our help comes. I don’t believe that we can become righteous on our own. Black hearts and all, warts and all, we need the help of Jesus. David wrote, “My help comes from the Lord,” Psalm 121:2. He knew very well what he was talking about. He had experienced sin and separation from God until he looked to God everyday.

So what I think is right for us is to look to God everyday of our lives for inspiration and direction. If we want to get past the past we need God’s help. We can look back, enjoy memories, even own old-time cars, toy trains, dolls and such while pressing forward in Christ.

INSPIRATION: “No man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon, “ Matthew 6:24”.  

Write: croneis@earthlink.net