Look Forward
There is abundance in gratitude. When we think of all the things we can be grateful for, our hearts fill with a sense of overflow and contentment.
If we’re constantly looking back and regretting, or wishing for what was, or lamenting what we lost or what could have been, we never see the real picture and don’t find it within our heart to be truly grateful.
Look forward to what is ahead and forget what has gone before. Leave the past in the past and press on to a better future.
The following passages in the bible encourage us not to look back.
Lot and his family became entrenched in a city of whose stench from wickedness touched God’s nostrils. They themselves made choices that were unwise and caused them to descend into a life that wasn’t God’s desire for them. Wrong thinking caused wrong choices that created subvergent outcomes. But God sent a rescue mission to them so they would not be destroyed with the city. Even so, they weren’t exactly grateful. Lot delayed and Lot’s wife looked back despite the warning not to.
Genesis 19:17, 26 (NIV)
As they were leaving the city, the angel warned Lot and his family and said, “don’t look back and don’t stop.” But Lot’s wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.
Why is it so tempting to look back? What good does it do us?
Isaiah 43:18-19 (NCV)
The Lord says, “Forget what happened before, and do not think about the past. Look at the new thing I am going to do. It is already happening. Don’t you see it? I will make a road in the desert and rivers in the dry land.
When we hold on to parts of our past it stops us from running into our future with open arms.
Philippians 3:13 (NASB)
but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead,
Other translations of this verse say straining forward. There is an exertion to focus on whatever is in our future. By the end of the day, this too will be in our past. We’re told to forget about it and keep forging ahead.
Psalm 37:3 (BSB)
Trust in the LORD and do good; dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness.
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