The danger of always dwelling on the past is that I might miss the possibilities of the present.
It’s a common response, when the present seems unbearable, to try to escape into the past. There are local churches still run by elders long dead and buried. “Brother So-and-so wouldn’t like that,” they say. Or, “That isn’t the way we’ve always done it.” Marriages try to run on the fumes of a long-ago romance. But we often edit our past, clipping out the segments we would rather not remember. In the heat and hopelessness of their wilderness wanderings, Israel remembered the lamb roasts but not the lash, the bread but not the brick kilns in Egypt. In Haggai’s day, the old folks wept because they remembered the gold and silver decorating Solomon’s temple, but forgot the onerous taxes that made it possible. So it is now with Job. His present is filled with grief, doubt, suffering, and alienation. Who wouldn’t want to escape from that? So Job 29 describes his journey through bygone days. “Oh, that I were as in months past, as in the days when God watched over me; when His lamp shone upon my head, and when by His light I walked through darkness; just as I was in the days of my prime, when the friendly counsel of God was over my tent; when the Almighty was yet with me, when my children were around me” (vv 2-5). Yes, he misses his family, as should be expected. But you can see his soul is most distressed about the loss of his heavenly Friend. And no wonder. Tragedies occur and family members are lost to us. But God? Where has He gone? Is someone who’s reading these words feeling like this? Personal tragedy is agonizing—but more bearable if God is near. Feeling alone in the universe? Exchange that feeling for fact, dear saint. “For He Himself has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you’” (Heb 13:5).