The temptation to look into the mirror...
So many times we're moving forward when we drive down the road and we occasionally look in the rear-view mirror, or in the side mirror, to see what's coming up from behind. We want to make sure that we watch out for the tractor-trailer or the flashing lights in the mirror. But we should not constantly look in the mirror; we should just check occasionally for only a few seconds. If we constantly look in the mirror as we're driving, we do not see what's ahead of us.
We may miss that the road makes a turn while we are too distracted looking at something that caught our interest and we're hung up on it. We may keep looking at the exit that we were supposed to take, but we blew it. We were distracted and going too fast and now we are a mile past where we needed to change direction.
As we go through life we are to look ahead of us, at the work that we have set our hands to. We cannot constantly live in the past. The enemy wants us to live in the past, so that we cannot complete the mission that God has for us. If we live our life in the past, we will crash because of the “I should haves”, or the “I could haves”. But you did not. You made a decision. You acted a certain way. Can we take it back or hit the reset button for our life? No, we must continue on.
We must learn from our experiences. All the past decisions and experiences, no matter if they were right or wrong, make you who you are. We have learned lessons. Yes, sometimes those lessons were painful to you or others, but hopefully you learned from them. If we never made any mistakes, could we learn?
Even if we make no mistakes, there are times that we are in great pain. We may experience a close person’s death, or suicide. We may have seen tragedy and it shook our world, but that does not define us. We may have flashbacks of past incidents or may have nightmares, but we should not live there.
Philippians 3:12,13 States that I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.
13 Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead. I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
If we let our past rule our present, we may have no future. You may look so hard in the rear-view mirror and not look up that you miss the next exit, so you did not take the off-ramp.
As we go through life, we are to look up and see what is ahead of us, as the work that God has set for us.
Use the past as a reference of lessons learned. As a point of reference, the past is alright. But as a wise teacher taught me, you cannot have a foot in two canoes. As your foot is in the two canoes, the boats separate and you fall into the water.
If you get stuck in the past and cannot get out for one reason or another, you may need someone to be your guide in the journey of getting rid of the dreams, or flashbacks, or triggers.
Please remember to do what you need to do to press on in the things that God has for you. You were created on purpose for a purpose. We do not want to cheat other people by not being able to assist them.
Stay safe,
Didymus McHugh
Didymus-mchugh.com
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