In the 80's there was a popular movie titled: "Back to the Future." While these were entertaining movies (three in total) it is not my intent to discuss the plot lines. Instead I want to give some thought to the title and our pathway towards a legacy of greatness for Jesus.
The power of our future is the story of our past. Whatever muddles, messes and or scandals that form our past one thing is certain: they were all necessary for our greatness. None of us like to revisit those moments but it is in the forgetting of them that hinders our genuine and fruitful forward movement. In Genesis 24 Abraham commissions his servant to find a bride for Isaac, the child of promise. Abraham was old and it was perhaps his desire to see Isaac married and, should God allow, to live long enough to see his grandchildren. Either way, the servant was made to promise Abraham that he would not choose a bride from the Canaanites, but from among Abraham's country and kindred (Genesis 24:3-4). To this command the servant agreed but, thinking ahead and factoring in the possibility of rejection, he asked,
“Perhaps the woman may not be willing to follow me to this land. Must I then
take your son back to the land from which you came?” (Genesis 24:5).
His question was a good one. You want people around you who are willing to help you to navigate major decisions of life. This was a bold ask since, he was the servant and as such your only job is to do, never to offer opinions or raise doubts about your master's course of direction. Yet, Abraham's response is very helpful for us and is the point of this post. Abraham replied:
"Abraham said to him, “See to it that you do not take my son back there.The Lord,
the God of heaven, who took me from my father’s house and from the land of my
kindred, and who spoke to me and swore to me, ‘To your offspring I will give this
land,’ he will send his angel before you, and you shall take a wife for my son from
there "(Genesis 24:6–7).
Here is the key to these words: Why would you go back to that from which the Lord delivered you?
People are continually crippled by their past and or continually return to their past ways because they have not made peace with the fact that the Lord has delivered them from it. People who grow in the expression of their greatness for the Lord are not those with a squeaky clean past. All of us have done and or said things that were unfair, not right and or ungodly. But what if the key to greatness for God is not regretting it but reminding yourself that, in spite of all of it, the Lord loved you out of it? Can I let you in on a popular secret? The Father did not simply love you out of it, He loved you completely out of it! There is nothing about your past, if you have trust in Jesus Christ, that can ever stand against you and because of that, it no longer stands as an impediment to your greatness in Jesus. The only power our past has over us is the power we give it.
What the servant posed to Abraham was logical to him, the servant. If he could not find someone in Abrahams current country and kinsmen, clearly he should go back to his hometown and find one there. Makes sense. Abraham's response, however, is one that teaches us that we should never return to that from which the Lord delivered us. Do not return in your mind and give it power; do not return in your life and go backwards. If you are delivered from it you should have not place in it. Your greatness is forward, not backwards. But your forward movement demands a clear understanding of your past so that you know it well enough to never repeat it to give it space in your mind. In other words, the power of not going back is the fruit of knowing exactly what your past was (never forgetting it) so that it never appears an viable option or factor in your present decision making.
Those people you used to run with in the past, He delivered you from them, do not go back. The sinful ways that used to define happiness and satisfaction to you in the past, He has forgotten them, do not go back. That (Those) failure(s) that remain like a stain from your past, He has erased it and made you clean, do not let them occupy your mind. When people and or your mind, begins to make the past look beautiful remember that the Lord delivered you from that. When your mind (or others) begin to rise up in condemnation of your past pointing our truths about you, things you cannot deny, remember that the Lord has delivered from and forgiven you of them all.
Abraham did not permit the servant to go back because the God who settled his past was now in the God of his future. If the servant did not find the Bride in the places he was told to look, Abraham trusted that His God would provide in the future (Genesis 24:7). The same is true for those of us who know and love Jesus. Our greatness in the Lord is comprised of our past but it is not in our past. Five years ago, five months ago, five weeks ago, five minutes ago...all represent our past. We cannot change it, but we dare not forget it, so that it does not rise up to steal from us the beauty of our present and the greatness of our future.
Our greatness in Christ is in front of us and the whole of your past represents the necessary building blocks God required to shape our future.
Never forget your past.
Never go back physically or mentally to your past
Always go back ... to the future