Look Back, Move Forward
Recently, I’ve been seeing memories from the early shutdowns due to COVID last year. I saw some photos surface of when I was spending more time with my dogs and wife. I watched a video of when I went golfing with a friend and made an eagle during our round of golf. As much as these are reminders of joy, I’ve also been seeing haunting recollections from last year such as the murder of George Floyd, the shutdowns and rising anxiety of many friends and family, and the gapping divides over racial, political, and scientific opinions.
As I look back on these things I’m met with the happiness of thinking about the extended time with my family, sweet moments of worshipping at home together, and warm springtime runs and golf rounds with friends whom I now call brother. Similarly, I remember moments of deep grief and lament over the darkness, death, and division in our nation and world. I recall feelings, I recapture my hours of research (outside of social media…), and I look back on our community as we did our best to find a way forward.
As I’ve been spending time thinking about these things I feel the Lord encouraging me with some steps that I think can be helpful for the people of God in this season. It’s of no coincidence that I’ve recently been teaching church history at our school of ministry and that I’ve been speaking about the importance of learning from our history so that we can better live in the present and better engage with the Lord and each other for a Kingdom future.
We must remember in order to learn, we must look back so that we can see the truth, and we must recollect to gain a better vision of the future. With that said, I believe there are a few steps I want to exhort us to take as we move into this next season of life.
Remember Your Feelings - As I wrote about earlier, when I have looked at these memories from last year I am reminded of the emotion associated with them. I feel the joy of late night laughs. I remember the stinging pain of feeling controlled. I sense the warmth of late afternoon runs and deep conversations. I acknowledge the fury of watching injustice and the proceeding months of division and confusion.
It’s in reliving these moments and emotions that I’m given clarity over present emotions: what I feel in the moment is not eternal truth.
For the good feelings, I recognize that I love being connected and that it takes effort to maintain those emotions and relationships. For the bad feelings, I learned that I don’t want to feel these things again and want to make every effort to help create communities that fight for unity and fight against injustice. I also gain perspective when I remember my feelings in that they are not the final word. The things I felt and thought at the moment are not all the same things I feel today.
In short, when I look back on what I felt, I can better assess what I’m feeling now, what the truth is, and how I can better respond in the future.Remember the Facts - Oh, boy. Here we go. If I had a dollar for every time somebody told me, “Just two more weeks till this things blows over…” I could have funded the stimulus programs from this last year. I could say this about every major event in 2020 because each circumstance was slanted for a specific bias, political party, or outcome. It was so easy to make everything based on emotional reaction rather than logical responses rooted in the truth.
When I look back on moments in my recent history, it’s hard to recollect the full list of facts from them because I might see them through pain, happiness, or other emotions attached to those events. However, I have found that when I reach out to others for a bigger picture, we are better able to piece the puzzle together. When I look back at original sources and things that have been untouched by the masses of media manipulators, I find a more clear picture.
Sometimes this truth is unsettling. Sometimes this truth is comforting. But, every time this truth is liberating. I believe that if we look back on the facts of situations that we will better be freed to see and live more clearly. At first, we might not have all the facts, but over time the truth might be revealed more and we might catch a larger view of the iceberg that we first thought was surface level. Remember the facts, research the facts, and make the next right step. Some of us need to apologize. Some of us need to repent. Some of us need to make up for the things we did, said, or thought (example). The truth will set us free.Learn to Lament - As I have been looking back on these moments from last year, I recognized that some events I grieved and lamented while others I simply numbed out and avoided. Interestingly, this has become a pattern for me as similar events reoccur and I find myself not grieving or lamenting in connection with Jesus, but just getting angry. And all the while, the Lord has been inviting me into sharing this anger and pain with Him through lament.
I think the Church has done an awful job in explaining and practicing grief and lament. We have changed the names of events to avoid pain (funeral/memorial to a celebration of life). We have implemented all happy songs rather than a worshipful expression of pain. We preach upbeat sermons that don’t touch the hot topics of today because we don’t want to disrupt the status quo or send away the big givers.
However, a majority of the Old Testament is filled with laments and grief statements. It’s the outcry of broken people expressing their pain in connection with the One who can handle it. It's the people of God shouting in anger, hunger, depression, sadness, anxiety, remorse, and so many other places of pain to the Lord who hears, loves, heals, comforts, and delivers.
The issue we have is that we have not properly grieved or lamented a number of situations and now we are choosing other unhealthy coping mechanisms to deal with the stuff that happens in our lives. We’ve witnessed riots, murders, the spreading of false information, idolatry through nationalism, violence in political partisanship, divide over phrases and expressed opinions, and the list goes on. We can either look back and continue to choose poor coping habits or take our pain to the Lord in lament.
After looking back, I would suggest that if we would simply take time to listen to one another, look at the facts, lament, grieve, and then pray together, we would find a much more united group of people than where we are today.Learn to Hope - Speaking of praying together, I truly believe that because of how isolated things became this last year and because we didn’t have proper spaces to speak about these topics, to lament, and to pray, we missed out on the opportunity of truly being in God’s Presence together and being informed and transformed by hope.
The reality is that many people hear about grief and lament, and they think, “Where’s the hope?” We cannot grieve or lament without hoping in Christ. The people of the Old Testament lifted their hearts and pains to the Lord in HOPE of His coming deliverance. The people of the New Testament encountered the One that came for their pain and promised to return to bring them into the fullness of what He offers. We might experience hiccups, we might have some road bumps and blockades along the way, but when we bring it all before the Lord in connection with Him, we find hope.
We find a hope that gives us vision when it seems like there’s nothing to see. We discover a hope that is an anchor for our soul when it feels as if there’s nothing to cling to. We encounter a hope that reveals strategy, wisdom, and grace for the impossible.
When we not only lament over our history, but we praise the Lord for His faithfulness we are filled with hope anew. We are reminded that although there have been dark eras of the Church, although there have been pandemics, divisions, crusades, uncertainties, and the like, the Lord has sustained His people, the mission has not changed, and God is still on the throne. We can recall that what God starts He finishes and when we look back, His faithfulness empowers us to be present and look forward as well.Visualize a Better Tomorrow - One of the biggest deterrents for looking back and moving forward is that many will not look back in order to learn and gain a greater vision for tomorrow. We simply get stuck in the mindsets of “that’s how it’s always been”, “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it”, and many other mantras. Yet, I believe the Lord has always called His people not to normal or comfortable, but to new and risky.
As I have looked back on this last year, I can’t help but think about the feelings, facts, grief, and hope, and channel it into a vision for what could be different and better. How can I continue to grow in my friendships? Why have I let other things get in the way of extended time with my family? How can I better listen to my brothers and sisters, and partner with them in Kingdom work? What can I do to alleviate injustice in our world as I act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God (Mic. 6:8)? I believe all these steps give me great pause and deep questions to ponder, and ultimately, they give me access to a larger vision and blueprint.
One of my favorite prayers in Scripture is from Ephesians 1:17-19 as Paul wrote, “I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe.” I don’t know a much better tomorrow than God’s people being filled with His Spirit of wisdom and revelation, knowing Jesus better, the eyes of our hearts being enlightened, knowing our hope and inheritance, and the power He has given us.
Long story short, the more time we spend with the Lord, the more we are filled with His vision. And where the people have no vision, they perish, but happy are those that keep the Law (Pro. 29:18). We might not always get the full picture, but any part of the picture is more than enough for us to see and stay close to the One who gives us insight.Actualize a Better Tomorrow - Sometimes I think people either stop at getting a blueprint for what’s next, or they don’t want to make the jump of obedience until they are filled with the peace of knowing every step along the way. However, I can’t tell you how many times in Scripture the Lord calls His people to do acts in audacious faith. Abram was told to go to a land the Lord would show him, and he went without knowing where (Gen. 12). Isaiah is strangely told to walk around naked without a reason until after he does so and the Lord prophesies about the judgment coming upon Egypt (Is. 20). Ezekiel is told to lay on his left side for 390 days and his right side for 40 days as a marker of God’s judgment on Israel and Judah (Ez. 4 & 8). Joseph and Mary are given dreams about Mary carrying Jesus, the Savior of the world, and they believe it and actualize it (Mt. 1-2, Lk. 1-2).
I could add to this list a ton of other names of faithful people (or you can read Hebrews 11), but for each one they are not just given a vision, but they are empowered to accomplish it through the strength of the Lord. James writes it this way, “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like (Jms. 1:22-24).”
I’d encourage you to take what the Lord shows you and make the next step, no matter how scary, unclear, or risky it may seem. If God calls you to it, it’s the best thing for you and those around you. You never know what’s on the other side of your obedience, but we do know the One who called you is faithful (Heb. 10).
We know that there are many commands given throughout the Scriptures, but one of the most repeated commands God gives to His people is “DO NOT BE AFRAID.” Beloved, the Lord is calling is to fearlessly look back in order that we may be better present now and gain a greater vision for the future with Him. Maybe as you look back the Lord will help you unpack many things in order for you to move forward in a better future, not only for you, but for others. The biggest question is not about Him giving you vision and showing you what’s next, but whether or not you will take the risky, bold steps into that tomorrow?
We are times in which we must look back with the Lord in order to move forward in what He has called us to. He’s inviting us into freedom and insight from our history, connection for our present, and vision for our future found in His hope and promise. It is to that future, a future filled with more than we can imagine that I write and pray. Amen.
