You Can't Move Forward If You're Always Looking Back!

Forward: to advance onward; to send ahead

Backward: toward the back; in reverse order

My friends, I know this sounds obvious, but sometimes things have to be said aloud for them to sink in: we can’t go forward if we are spending most of our time looking back! It’s like we can’t let go of the very thing that got us in the position that we are in to move forward. Have you ever seen a swimmer win a race by looking backward?! Of course not - he or she is trying to reach their goal - they simply don't have time to waste looking backwards.

I know this sweet lady who once had a beautiful house on the water. When she reached eighty years old, she decided the house was too much for just her and decided to sell it. Luckily for her, she sold when the housing market was very good, which put her in a position to have a brand new house built that was the perfect size for her. However, she can't see the beauty of what God has done for her because her heart and mind are still so focused on what she had. Every now and then, she still goes by the old house and when she does, she complains about how the house looks, and about how the yard is being maintained. She can’t enjoy the present for looking at the past.

Think about the children of Israel - they had only been out of Egypt three days when they started complaining! Exodus 16:3 tells us the story, "And the children of Israel said unto them, Would to God we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh pots, and when we did eat bread to the full; for ye have brought us forth into this wilderness, to kill this whole assembly with hunger." While the children of Israel were in bondage in Egypt, they cried out to God and He gave them something better, but once they were out of bondage, they couldn’t even enjoy the manna God sent down from Heaven because they were so busy looking back on the bread they once had.

Of course, we really didn’t have to go ALL THE WAY back to the children of Israel. We can just look at people we know in the work place. Some folks have worked hard and have performed well in the role God allowed them to have. As a reward, when a higher position became available, God honored their hard work by moving them up. Now, he or she can't move forward and excel in their new position because they are constantly trying to micro-manage the position they left behind. So you tell me, how are they going to move forward if they spend all of their time looking backward?

Friends, let's not miss out on all of the beautiful things that God has placed in front of us by wasting time looking backward! We must learn to let whatever God has moved us from go completely so that we can move forward to the bigger, better things that God has for us.

There is SO much that can be said on this subject, but I don’t want to be like that Pastor who went to the dentist for a set of false teeth. The first Sunday after he got his new teeth, he only preached for eight minutes. On the second Sunday after he got his new teeth, he preached for ten minutes. On the third Sunday, that Pastor preached for 2 hours and 48 minutes! After church on that third Sunday, the congregation asked him what happened to make him preach so long. The Pastor replied, "on that first Sunday, my gums hurt so bad that I could only talk for 8 minutes. On the second Sunday, my gums hurt so bad that I could only talk 10 minutes. But this third Sunday, I put my wife’s teeth in by mistake and I just couldn’t shut up!"

So before you all start wondering whose teeth I put in today, let the Church say amen… and AMEN!