Take heart...and trust!
By Rev. William Dohle
If you had a magical watch that could turn back time, would you use it? Would you change anything about your past? What happened to you? Or perhaps what you made happen to another?
Changing the past is a frequent theme in science fiction literature. There's something appealing about going back in time and fixing something that went wrong.
But there's one problem.
The past makes us who we are today. Without the past we wouldn't be the person we are right now. We'd be someone different, in a different place, a different time, with different people, and with different problems.
Fix any one of those problems and the cycle continues.
We can never go back to the past. What's done is done. And we must press forward into whatever the future holds.
That's hard to do. Especially when the past seems so appealing!
The people of Israel faced this very problem just outside the Promised Land. From across the Jordan River, they had sent their spies into the land. Only most of their spies had returned disheartened. Most said there was no way they could move forward. Only Joshua and Caleb disagreed and believed that God would do what God had promised.
Disheartened, the people rebel against Moses, crying out to God:
"Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would that we had died in this wilderness! Why is the Lord bringing us into this land to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become booty; would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?" So they said to one another, "Let us choose a captain, and go back to Egypt." (Num. 14:2-3)You can hardly blame them. Here they had traveled across the desert, been chased by Pharaoh's army, eaten strange things like manna and quail, and then are told by their spies that there was no way for them to succeed? Of course they'd be disheartened! Of course they'd complain!
Going back to Egypt seemed to be the best idea to them! After all, they had three meals a day there! They may have had to work for their supper, but it was better than starving...right?
We too may feel like the people of Israel at times. Thinking about our lives, we may long for the days gone past. The "days in Egypt", be they good or bad, always seem better than they were in retrospect. We remember, not the slavery that we suffered under, but the few good meals that we shared.
Like the people of Israel, we must press on into the future. No spies have been on before us. Nobody has scouted out the land we will walk. We may face giants and all sorts of dangers. We may even be killed.
But, thanks be to God, we do not travel alone. We have a God with us who walks us through the past into the future. As a wise pastor I know says, "We do not know what the future holds. But we know who holds the future."
So, heartened by this, we press on to win the prize for which Christ Jesus has called us heavenward. Let us put aside our fears of the future. Instead, with hope and faith in our hearts, we press on into the future. There is no other way.
God of Hope, inspire us that we may look, not to the past, but always to the future for the promised land lies ahead of us even now. Amen.
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