Life In A Rearview Mirror

As September dawns and summer is quickly fading I am tempted to look back with longing and want to go back. I love summer with it’s warmth and carefree atmosphere. The days are filled with the lightheartedness of kids who are out of school and ready for adventure, the look and smell of freshly cut grass, beautiful flowers all around, and the sense of togetherness as families seek to spend more time together vacationing, camping, or just enjoying time tossing a ball around in the back yard. The thought of it fading into fall (which only leads to winter) gives me a melancholy feeling, and I will admit that this morning one of my first thoughts was, “I want a DO-OVER!!”

I was soon convicted however, that life should not be lived in a rearview mirror.

I’m not suggesting that we should not look back and remember or even evaluate the past. God equipped us with memories and He wants us to use them. He doesn’t want us to learn or experience something just to cast it aside with no more regard for what benefit we gained from it.

But at the same time, God does not want us to live life in a rearview mirror. Each day we are given is a gift from God, an opportunity to learn more and to touch the lives of others with the words we say or the things we do. God has a plan for each of us, and in order to fulfill that plan we need to keep going, focusing ahead of us and not living in the past.

In Philippians 3:12-14 Paul gives us an example to follow:

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: 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.

Whether the past has been filled with positive or negative things in your life, I encourage you to leave them in the past and look ahead to what is still coming. Seasons change, but God does not. God’s plans aren’t affected by the seasons of the earth, they are dependent on how much we focus on Him and look for Him in each day…pressing on to find the gift that is a part of today.

May you find the peace that is waiting for you today, and know that a glance in your rearview mirror is good, but to find where you are going you need to look ahead.

blessings to you on this first day of September!

Paula