Article April 16, 2001 Issue

Making your way forward

Looking longingly at the past? Perhaps we think that life was happier or simpler then.

By Stephanie Johnson

When you're driving a car, you need to keep looking ahead. Of course, you'll glance occasionally in the rearview mirror. But to get anywhere, you'll have to look ahead. As with cars, so with living.

We're sometimes drawn into the trap of looking longingly at the past. Maybe the house is filled with heirlooms that we've become overly attached to. Sometimes we get bogged down going over past regrets, or even past accomplishments. Whatever form the backward focus takes, it can get in the way of progress.

There's a very instructive illustration of this human tendency to look back. A man named Lot lives with his family in the city of Sodom (see Gen., chaps. 18, 19). God warns him to flee the city, since it is going to be destroyed. Lot and his family evacuate as earthquakes and fire began to erupt. God gives them one more warning, "Don't look back."

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