Go Forward Don't Go Back

All of us create revisionists histories of our pasts.  We filter out certain details so that the desire to return to a bygone day of idyllic memories drives us backward instead of forward.  This is reflected in the way we engage the world around us - from our hair and clothing styles (which typically are reflective of the happiest time in our life) to our professional choices to our political views.  This is not a new phenomenon.

I know I have mentioned, and I frequently think of, Sara Groves' song "Painting Pictures of Egypt".  The chorus says:
     Painting pictures of Egypt
     Leaving out what it lacked
     The future looks so hard and I wanna go back
     But the places that used to fit me
     Cannot hold the things I've learned
     Those roads were closed off to me when my back was turned

The words remind us of the Israelites, finally freed from hundreds of years of oppression, as they stood on the foothills of the Promise.  And there in the wilderness, they longed for Egypt.  They forgot the bitterness and longed for the "comforts" of slavery.

Freedom is often far more difficult than slavery....
But much, much better.

As I have said, Sundays are particularly hard for me.  Yesterday I was with my family at the ocean and after waking up in the morning felt an overwhelming sense of loss, a feeling that reoccurs somewhat regularly.  I think about the people I love that I left.  I think about my job and all the opportunities I had.  I think of how quickly I made this decision and I wonder if it was the right one.

My mother asked me yesterday, "Do you think you moved too quickly?"  It is a question I have asked myself hundreds of times... and sometimes I want to go back.

But I can't.

Years ago I went for a walk in the state park near my house.  It was a place for me to walk with the Lord and have conversations.  I was longing to know His voice from my own thoughts and was also wondering about the next step of my life.  I knew that change was coming soon, but I didn't know what it would be - what the vision for my life could possibly be.

So I went for a hike.

This particular trail started along the road and then went up a very very steep hill.  As I was walking up the hill, a little past halfway, talking to God about the purpose of my life, I reached my hand into my pocket and discovered that I was missing my key.  My phone was locked in my car and this key was the only way for me to get home.  I had a moment of panic as I tried to decide if I should walk back down the hill so that I would not have to retrace all of my steps.  I didn't want to walk the entire hill again.

"Go forward, don't go back."  These words rang in my head.  I wondered if they were God's words or my own.  I decided to walk forward as if they were God's words and not mine.

As I reached the top of the hill, asking God, "What is the vision for my life?" the song "Be Thou My Vision" began playing in my head.  Jesus.  He is the vision for my life.  As this thought was sinking in, deer ran across the path (I am not joking).  And instead of being overwhelmed by the implications of the vision, all I could think about was my key.

"It is so hard to concentrate on first things.  Second things - the worries of life - so easily drown out the bigger picture."  My thoughts or God's?

Then, "How big am I, Jessica?"  I looked up.

"You are larger than the universe," I thought.

"Do I know where your key is?  How could I bring it to you?"

The next few minutes were spent imagining ways God could return my key to me.  Perhaps a bird would pick it up and deposit it later on the path.  Or an angel or a stranger could find it and hand it to me.  Maybe a squirrel would pick it up, run it to me, and speak to me in English.  I laughed as my imagination ran wild.

"Go forward, don't go back."

The rest of my walk was a wrestling match between worrying that my key would not be found, that I wasn't hearing the voice of God and trying to understand my life's vision as pursuit of Christ.

Towards the end of the trail, the path reconnected on the big hill, a little less than halfway down.  Do I go back up and look or do I continue forward on the trail?  

"Go forward, don't go back."

I walked forward.  To the bottom of the hill and along the path as it wound it's way toward the road.  As I saw the entrance to the trail, there lay my key in the middle of the path.  I picked it up and the words ran through my head, "Jessica, you know my voice and you can trust me."

I am not always confident that I do know the voice or the will of God, but I do know that there are times he has taught me things.  Phrases that run through my head when I most need them.  Phrases like, "Go forward, don't go back."  Another is, "Choose and walk."  Both have to do with trusting God and also trusting my desire to seek him.  As I make choices I need to walk forward in those choices, without longing to go back to what I have left behind.

We all make choices.  We worry that perhaps we have made a wrong or a foolish choice even as we seek the will of God.  But God is bigger than our choices, bigger than our worries, bigger than all the things we have left behind and all the things we are moving towards.  We can walk forward in the confidence that He will guide our paths, that he will get us where he wants us, and that the journey will make us whole.