Life is lived forward.

I live by a simple principle, one my church hears me say it all the time, “Our best days are yet to come.” I joke with them often that if they ever hear me suggest our best days are behind us, they need to find a new pastor. Future hope is what gives us passion and purpose!

That being understood, there are good and redemptive reasons to look backward, but before I write about the good, I will caution all of us against looking back for the wrong reasons:

Revenge focuses on bitterness and a desire to make someone pay. Bitterness is poison we drink while expecting someone else to suffer and die. Bitterness imprisons us in victimhood and allows the perpetrator to continue controlling our lives. Forgiveness sets us free. If we’re going to look back, let’s look back to forgive.

Regret is bitterness against self. It focuses on the would-a-could-a-should-a mistakes of life. Forgiving self is often the hardest form of grace to give. If regret is eating you alive, then it is time to pour grace on yourself. If you don’t, you will live in a prison of your own making. Consider this: if you don’t forgive yourself, you will waste more time and potential – and ten years from now you’ll be regretting that mistake. Break the cycle of regret today – forgive yourself and start looking to your future! Ten years from now, you’ll be glad you did.

Reverse is a desire to regain some former glory. Instead of moving forward into a future of promise and potential, those living in reverse try to relive the past. Doing so simply wastes the potential of today and tomorrow. Did you have some good times back in the day? Great! Celebrate the good, but instead of trying to relive the past, dream about an even-better tomorrow. This is a great bit of advice for church leaders. Your future potential will never be revealed if you’re wasting time and resources preserving the past. Let it go. Your best days in the mission of God are ahead of you. Live like it, and lead like it.

Remove. Some people look backward in an effort to remove mistakes. You know, to clean it up and make the story better. We see this happening today in our country as revisionists try to change history to remove aspects of the story they don’t like. Mistakes and sins are an important part of every story. Instead of removing them, we should learn from them. George Santayana quipped, “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” The Bible includes some awful stories that someone should have left out of the narrative a long time ago. They didn’t. Why? Because we learn from mistakes. Any effort to clean up the past is an exercise in dishonesty.
There are good reasons to look backward:

Reveal. Looking backward can reveal negative patterns of behavior and decision-making that have guided our story. Revealing those patterns helps us to make adjustments that result in our lives gaining a better future trajectory.

Restitution. Some of our mistakes and sins affected other people. Confession is good, but when others have been hurt, confession is not enough. We must do our best to make them whole. When Jesus met Zacchaeus, the crooked tax collector looked backward to make restitution. Jesus honored that decision. Have your decisions had a negative impact on others? Look back and make restitution. You’ll be glad you did – and the person you make whole will rejoice. That’s a win-win!

Redemption. God forgives! If there is any reason to look backward, celebrating redemption may be the most important of all. If you’re going to tell your story, leave the mistakes and messiness in and let them declare the amazing grace of God! Right now, someone is feeling lost and alone in their mistakes. They are without hope. We’ve all been there – all of us. Our redemptive stories can bring hope to the hopeless. Don’t hide your past sins and failures, instead, bring them out into the light and then speak loudly of God’s mercy and grace. You’re not perfect, so stop acting like it. Honestly tell your story of redemption and let it give hope to someone who is struggling today.

My friends, the Bible is a messy book. Yes, it is filled with great stories and miracles and hope, but it also contains awful stories of sin and hatred and ugliness. I used to wonder why those stories were left in, but not anymore. They are there to declare the redemptive mercy and grace of God. I’m glad King David’s failure with Bathsheba and Uriah was recorded. If God could forgive David’s awful sins, then he can forgive ours too. That’s the power of redemptive story.

Rejoicing. If we’re willing to see it, the past actually contains far more blessing than it does suffering. If you don’t agree with that statement, then you are obsessing so much on the bad that you’re missing the good. I recently spoke with a World War II veteran who saw a lot of bloody action. It was hard to listen to. What made it bearable was his constant observation that in the midst of all the suffering, God showed his faithfulness again and again. If he could find God’s blessing in the midst of fierce and bloody battle, then you and I can do the same in our stories. This is why Paul encourages us in I Thessalonians 5:18 to “give thanks in all circumstances.” If we’re willing to see it, there is always something to be thankful for. Always.

If we’re going to look back, then let’s do so for the right reasons. Amen.