Looking backwards, forward or where?

One of the greatest ways to spoil a journey is to keep thinking of what you should have done in the past instead of enjoying where you are now. When you are viewing the Colosseum in Rome can you really be spending your time thinking instead of how you should have tried a different cafe the day before? Why regret the past to the effect of losing out on the present.

How many times do we do this in our life journey? How many times do we wish we could replay the past? How much better our lives would have been if I had gone done the one path instead of the one we traveled on. Why do that? We can't change our pasts. Even worse what would we lose in our present if we could change the decisions of the past. If I had done things differently in the past I might not have been living in Newport wanting to be on a couples bowling league the same time Edna was and I never would have met her. Would the change in my life be worth never meeting her and having her say yes to being my wife? Would the change in my life be worth never having our son Andrew that we have now?

Instead of regretting the past we need to enjoy the benefits the past has given us today. The decisions we did make have brought us to where we are now and give us the gifts we now have.

Even more important we need to look up and realize that our God is a sovereign God. His ways and thoughts are not our ways and thoughts. He has a plan for our lives that will bring Him glory. He desires and plans to use our past, our present, and our future to bring glory to His name. Regretting our past and where it has brought us is telling God that He was wrong and He should have given us control of our lives. Regretting our pasts prevents us from seeing His fingerprints in our past and bring us to Him with hearts of praise and thanksgiving.

Looking backwards blind us to our present spot in our journey. Worrying about the future crowds out what the present has to hold. Looking upwards helps us see the glory of God in our present and helps us see Him in our journey and we can let His light shine through us.