Looking Ahead

When the younger version of me was in the phase of life consumed with wheels, friends, and music, that teenage boy was totally convinced that the old tan Chevy was incapable of rolling down the road apart from some tune from a Country Music station coming out the speakers and through the windows. Many of the lyrics from those old songs stick with me to this day, and at certain times, songs I haven’t heard in nearly 25 years come rushing back to the forefront of my mind. Nearing the end of a school year – one that has seen its share of bumps, twists, turns, and changes – I find myself thinking back on the year and looking back on all that this one entailed, and a refrain from one of those old songs rings in my mind…My footsteps carry me away, but in my mind I’m always going home. I guess sometimes we look ahead by remembering what is behind.

In a world that is unfortunately sometimes overcrowded with negativity, I have to force myself to do an inspection of life and purposely note the good stuff that has happened, is now happening, and hopefully will happen in the future. At a public school, you can imagine that we deal with our share of knuckle-heads, and sometimes we focus far too much on that. I force myself to realize that while we have unpleasant students sometimes, the great majority of them are fun, smart, hard-working, and just downright good kids. This year, I saw a group of students graduate that had transformed from the most immature group of freshmen I had ever taught to an outstanding crew of young adults of quality character with loads of potential and bright futures.  It’s a reminder of what scripture teaches in Ecclesiastes 3:11 – “He has made everything beautiful in its time.” 

The flower in the picture at the top of this post was given to me and my wife as a goodbye gift from the children at the church I served as pastor for five years. Each child put their thumb print on the pot and wrote their name. What a joy to see that flower blooming out! As I look back on all the things the Lord accomplished during my time with that wonderful group of Christian friends, I look forward to hearing of all the future accomplishments He will bring about through the names of those kids on the flower pot and the adults that invest in their lives. Likewise, I look forward to the new ministry task the Lord has entrusted me with, and I will always view that plant as a transition from one blessing of God to another in my life. Perhaps it will be a reminder to me and my family of the goodness of God for years to come, much like this account in Joshua 4 – “And Joshua set up at Gilgal the twelve stones they had taken out of the Jordan. He said to the Israelites, “In the future when your descendants ask their parents, ‘What do these stones mean?’ tell them, ‘Israel crossed the Jordan on dry ground.’ For the LORD your God dried up the Jordan before you until you had crossed over. The LORD your God did to the Jordan what he had done to the Red Sea when he dried it up before us until we had crossed over. He did this so that all the peoples of the earth might know that the hand of the LORD is powerful and so that you might always fear the LORD your God.”

Sometimes we need to look back in order to look ahead. Yesterday – no matter how great or how terrible it might have been – is over. Today is a new day. We learn from our yesterdays, but we live today, and the things we do now will affect our tomorrows. Always look forward to where you’re going, but never forget where you came from. And as we travel down this old dusty road of life, around some twist or turn, I’ll see you in the Great Outdoors!