Are You Willing To Look Back To Move Forward?
It may only take a few weeks to prepare for a new job
, or a few hours to learn how to take great looking pictures with a new camera. But actually living for today and beyond? Well, that takes a lifetime of preparationat least all the time that youve lived as of this moment.
I want you to imagine a single pole sticking up in a wide-open field. That pole represents your present moment. At least with this pole, today has something tangible about it. But tomorrow requires you to leave this pole and venture elsewhere. How will you know what direction to go? Where will you place the next pole?
What if you could look behind in your past and see a similar pole standing at the other end of the field? Any two points create a straight line. Lining up your past with the present creates that straight line. And when youre venturing out into the unknown future, a straight line is exactly what you want to follow.
As a college student putting up fence posts, to move forward I had to constantly look behind me. To make progress required me to line up the next pole with the previous two. Only when I lined up the third pole with the previous two could I stay on a straight line.
Recently, I asked the Lord where the current path Im traveling on ends. Thats a fair question to ask, right? Its not like I want to leave the path He has me on, I just want to know where it ends.
I must admit that when He answered, Somewhere up-ahead, beyond where you can currently see I chuckled inside. Its the type of answer Ive come to expect from God, one that endears Him to me even more. No matter how far of a glimpse ahead He allows me to view, the end is something Ill never see until I get there.
The direction your future heads toward needs the occasional backward glance to stay on track. That is, of course, if you want your life to continually travel in a straight line. If you want to line-up the future and avoid drifting off course, those two poles behind youthe past and the presentare required viewing,
Which brings me back to the statement I made at the beginning:
You cannot prepare yourself for something that only God can prepare you for.
What if all the stuff in the past, God has put there Himself, or allowed others to put there, so that the arrow connecting it with the present would point to the big crescendo He is leading your life toward in the future?
Youre not buying this, are you? Too many things litter your past, and too many things weigh down the present for you to see how God could use any of them to point you to the future, right? Well, look behind you again.
Behind you in the past, theres not just one pole sticking up or two or three, but thousands. Thousands of poles scattered all throughout the once-empty field, each one representing an aspect of your life you previously lived. Many of them might be inconsequential, simply a moment in time that left as quickly as it came. But if you look carefully, you can see some lining up with your present moment, pointing you directly to the future.
But back in the past, when God planted a certain pole in a particular moment, you had no idea He was doing it. Hardly were you aware that God would one day use that past experience as a way to line up your present moment with the future. But thats exactly what He did.
What is it in your past that lines up with the present that now so clearly points your way toward the future?
Which poles sticking-up in your past did God specifically plant, or allow others to plant, that give insight into where youre going?
If you want to see a glimpse into the rest of your life, start looking in your past. Follow the line straight through the moment and then see where things lead.
God knows what He is doing, and has a why for everything He has done. As a new creation, lost somewhere in the vastness of Christ, every second of your day has meaning. This is His way of getting your today looking toward the future.
And what exactly does God want for you today but to give insight into where He is taking you.
As I stated earlier, God will only give you as much of a future glimpse as He wants you to see. More than likely the glimpse will never include a view of the end.
But thats okay, because dont you prefer to enjoy each moment with Him and put one-pole-up at-a-time so as not to rush through life?
Why not spend thirty minutes asking God to point out the relevant poles He has planted in your past, and how they line up with the present to point you toward your future. You might be surprised at how the path of a once undefined future all of a sudden becomes a straight line.
(If you want more clarity about finding your future, watch this quick, two minute video).
by: David Stephens
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