Don't Look Back
Have you ever had a really embarrassing moment? I remember one (of my many) from when I was around 13 years old. I was hanging out with some friends at a gym, and I thought I would be cool and run on a treadmill.... backward. I hit the bottom of the treadmill hard! I continued to bounce up and down as the treadmill continued to move forward. This moment is one that I will never forget. As an embarrassed and humiliated 13-year-old girl, the lesson learned was that you can’t move forward while facing backward!
The enemy loves to keep you looking backward to keep you from moving forward in what God has for you. One of the names of the devil is the accuser of the brethren. He loves to keep your past alive and well. What are some areas in your past that the enemy tries to keep alive? Is it a mistake, an old lifestyle, an offense, a trauma? Whatever it is, God wants to do a new thing in you--- that new thing doesn’t require a walk down memory lane. Isaiah 43:18-20 says, “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?” To perceive the new thing God wants to do in your life, the Bible tells you to forget the past and not dwell on it! There is no room in your future for what is behind you! If the enemy can keep you focused on the past, he will keep you stuck there.
There is a story in the Bible about Lot’s wife. God was rescuing them from a city about to be destroyed—he was getting ready to give Lot and his family a new start. The one directive God gave was not to look back. Guess what she did? She looked back. When she did, she turned into a pillar of salt. She forfeited a good future because she was focusing on her past. Luke 17:32 tells us to “Remember Lot’s wife.” Don’t make the same mistake!
The past tries to revive itself in your life in three ways:
1) It magnifies itself: What you magnify will manifest in your life! If you are continually thinking about what happened, what you did, or what they said--- you’re magnifying. God calls us out of those things. Colossians 3 tells us to put off our old selves and to put on the new. Every time you magnify a part of your past, you’re putting the old on again. The Bible tells us in 2 Corinthians 10:5 to take our thoughts captive to the obedience of Christ. If thoughts of your past are running through your mind like an old movie on repeat, it’s time to take them into captivity. Each meditation on your past gives that memory or mistake life again. God has brought you too far to turn back!
2) It tries to magnetize. Your past will try to pull you back to it! Statistically, when people go through hardship or adversity, the first response is to resort to old patterns and ways of thinking. Break the cycle once and for all. If the enemy tries to draw you back, remind him and yourself that that’s not who you are anymore! You are a new creation in Christ Jesus! Sin is no longer your master; you are a child of God!
3) It tries to memorialize. Your past will try to make memorials to itself. Do you know your memory doesn’t serve you well? Things were typically not as bad or good as you remember them. Your mind creates what it wants as its reality, and it uses your memories to do so. It’s like fragmented portions of a movie that it orchestrates to serve the script it wants you to believe. Do you find yourself looking back and creating memorials, moments in time where you think things will never be that good again? God never goes backward! Your future is better than your past—no matter how good your past was!
The next time the enemy uses your past to hold you back, keep you stuck, or ruin your future, remember there are new things, great things ahead. Learn from Lot’s wife and learn from my treadmill mishap—you can’t move forward looking back!