Rear-view Mirror

The past few days I have been struggling with the past. Sometimes it is hard to look back and see how things have changed. For some of us the past is an ugly place that we don’t want to remember but it haunts us every day of our lives. For others the past is a great place that we long to go back to because we miss what once was and we are not satisfied with what is. In my life I have experienced a little bit of both of those scenarios.

But as I “reflected” on this (no pun intended….well maybe a little pun intended) God brought the image of a rear-view mirror to mind. Webster’s dictionary defines a rear-view mirror as “a mirror (as in an automobile) that gives a view of the area behind a vehicle.” Obviously, sometimes it is important to see behind the vehicle. You need to see behind you when you are driving in reverse to make sure you don’t hit anything and you need to see behind you while driving to keep an eye out for emergency vehicles or anything else that may be coming from behind. The rear-view mirror is a very important part of any vehicle. However, if one tried to drive while constantly looking in the rear-view mirror the results could be disastrous. 

I believe the same concepts apply to our lives. There are times in our lives when we need to “glance” at what has passed. We can use it as a point of reference to remember where we came from – that is very important. Sometimes we need to know what is behind us to know how to appropriately react in our present (for example – if a cop is behind us we need to pull over). But be careful because we've all seen that message in our mirrors, right? “Objects in mirror are closer than they appear”. A mirror’s perspective is skewed. We cannot always trust that what we see is exactly what is real. A mirror has a way of skewing our view and affecting how we see things. Remember that how you look back at things may not be exactly how they really occurred. Be willing to recognize that might be the case and adjust accordingly. When we are in reverse we need to use our mirrors to make sure we do not collide with anything and hurt someone else or ourselves - so reverse is another point. Why do we reverse? How long do we reverse? Sometimes we have to reverse to get back on track to where we need to go, but we never reverse for a long period of time -for that would be dangerous. We reverse for the shortest amount of time possible – the length of time it takes to make the adjustment – and then we begin to move forward.

Sometimes in life we get so caught up in what is behind us that we forget to move forward. If we have encountered bumpy roads along the way what good does it do to keep looking in the rear-view mirror and saying “Wow, look at that road back there – that was bumpy!”?  If we do that we can miss what is on the road ahead of us. This never has positive results. It is also possible that we will stop our car altogether and just sit there parked looking at those bumpy roads. That would be a tragedy. We can do the same thing with looking at the scenery we passed. Yes, we will pass beautiful places, but we can’t always stay there. We need to keep driving forward.

Isaiah 43:18-19 says, “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”

Let us not become so “past focused” that we cannot see what God is doing in our present or worse yet we miss it totally because we are still “rear-view mirror” focused. God is always doing a new thing! That is what He has been showing me through these last few days. I have taken a little time to look at the view and remember where I have been, but now it is time to face forward, step on the gas again and drive on! Happy trails, friends!