The Past: Learning From It Without Living In It

Someone once said that in life we have two choices. We can learn from the past or be doomed to repeat it. It’s good advice. Individually and collectively we must learn the lessons of history if we are to avoid the traps and pitfalls into which others before us or perhaps we ourselves have fallen. It’s advice, though, that should be taken with caution for the line between learning from the past and being a victim of it is thin indeed.

We may know of someone for who past experience has soured current aspects of their life. It may be the person who, because of one or several failed romantic relationship, has exiled themselves to a life of loneliness, refusing to risk further emotional trauma. Or it might be the individual, who having been raised in an abusive childhood situation determines to never bring children of their own into such a potentially painful world. Or perhaps it's the Christian, having been soured by experience with "organized" religion, who washes their hands of it altogether, packs up their Bible and Concordance and proceeds to "go it alone" on their own little spiritual island.

Whatever the hurts and injustices we've suffered or witnessed in the past, living in it rather than using it as a tutor to guide ourselves or others to a more successful future, makes us its victim.

I believe that we as Christians, perhaps more than most, have a tendency to fall into this trap. We as a group have very sensitive noses for justice. We are keenly aware of right and wrong and we have a definite desire to see righteousness prevail and evil punished. Although a desirable quality in most cases, this sensitivity has the potential to work against us. In a world where the evil too often emerge victorious and injustices are a daily occurrence, our spirits can easily become embittered, cynical and negative. Allowed to linger, this fixation on the injustices of the world can ultimately serve to rob us of our joy and inhibit our growth forward. We become victims of the past rather than its students.

In Philippians 3:12 through the example of Paul we are admonished to forget those things which are behind and reach forward to those things which are ahead.

In Matthew 10:16 Jesus tells us “Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as doves.”

Taken together, these passages encourage us to not let the past cripple us but rather to gain wisdom from the injustices we or others have witnessed or experienced, and use that wisdom to move forward in a positive, productive direction.

God wants us to look ahead to Him as the Author and Finisher of our faith and toward what He has in store for us. We can’t do that if we are constantly obsessed by what’s back over our shoulder.

Yes, it’s true. Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it. We shouldn’t ignore the past. Let’s learn from it, gain wisdom because of it, but not be victimized by it. It’s okay to visit there once in awhile but it’s definitely not a healthy place to live.



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"I will meditate on Your precepts, and contemplate Your ways. I will delight myself in Your statutes; I will not forget Your word." Psalms 119:15 - 16