Don't Look Back

A few weeks ago I was meeting with a new friend who I have gotten to know over the last five months at my new church. As I was getting ready to leave she told me about a story she had just read in the book of Genesis, and she said she felt compelled to share it with me. 

It was the story of Lot leaving Sodom with his wife and daughters. Sodom was about to be destroyed, and Lot’s family was instructed, “Flee for your lives! Don’t look back, and don’t stop anywhere in the plain (Gen. 19:17)!” But Lot’s wife looked back at Sodom, and she turned into a pillar of salt.

Not a week later, another friend sent me a blog post from Sara Hagerty. She spoke of the frustration she felt when her normal running route was closed one morning. There are so many variables in her day that it was irritating to have the one consistency in her routine then taken from her. She had no choice but to take a new route. As she ran a new path - by new houses, new trees, new fields - she recognized a connection between the route change and what God was doing in her. She loved the side of God she experienced in that season and realized she was holding onto that season of life with a white-knuckle grip. The more she sensed the invitation to let go the tighter she was holding on. 

“There's a new side of God to be found in a new season, but I suspect I'm not alone in wanting to make a lesson and full-time lifestyle out of the previous side of God I saw.”

- Sara Hegarty

Between these two stories, God spoke to my heart that was aching for something that had used to be. I had been comfortable in the last church I worked at. I know God has shown me his provision and affirmation for where I am now, and I’m so grateful to be where I am doing what I’m doing, but I still found myself looking back with a white-knuckle grip on things from a season God was asking me to let go of. 

When I look back it should be in celebration of what God has done, not longing for a time that has come to pass. He’s shown me comfort is a sign that He’s going to do something new and ask that I obediently follow Him into what’s next – into a new thing that will do a new thing in me. And in doing so, there will be a new side of God to worship as I continue to learn about Him and wade deeper in His love for me. 

I had a pretty tight grip on some things I didn’t even realize I was holding onto so tightly. But God knows my heart and my ways, and He worked for months to peel each finger back until I was palms up in surrender again. They were good things, but He had new good things I could not receive until I let go of the old. 

I was processing this with someone who used monkey bars as an analogy. You have to let go of the monkey bar behind you to grab the monkey bar ahead of you. If you don’t, you won’t go anywhere. 

I remember in elementary school a kid in my class got halfway across the monkey bars and then stopped. I don’t know if he was scared, tired, or what – he couldn’t go forward but was scared to drop, so he just hung there while some kids laughed (me) and others were irritated because they then couldn’t go until he moved. 

Have you thought about that? There could be something or someone that’s waiting for their next monkey bar because you haven’t moved on to your next monkey bar. I wouldn’t have been able to step into my current job if the person who was in it before me hadn’t moved on to her next thing. My friend wouldn’t have met her spouse if things with her last boyfriend had gone on longer than they should have. If another friend hadn’t taken the brave step of moving to another continent several people who now have a relationship with Jesus would still be lost and searching. 

Don’t be the kid that’s hanging in the middle of the monkey bars! We’re not called to be stagnant. We are called to move, because God is already making the way – He put the new bar ahead and wants us to let go of the old one to grab the new. It can be scary but as long as you can muster up the faith to reach that’s enough to keep fear from leaving you hanging in the middle of the monkey bars.

But sometimes, like Sara, we will reach a road closure that will push us into something new. I have stories (some of which I’ve already written), and I know several others who have stories, of how a door has been closed so they have to go through a new, beautiful open door. It’s confusing and disheartening sometimes to have a door shut in your face, but look for the new thing – the new door – that God’s preparing for you.

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 desert and streams in the wasteland. 

– Isaiah 43:18-19

He’s making a way. Don’t look back – celebrate without dwelling. Reach for the next thing God is moving you to.