Don't look back

Lately I've been reading through the Old testament again and one thing I'm reflecting on this morning is how many times God had warned his people not to return to a life of sin, and how many times his people chose to not listen. It's easy to take the position of a modern reader looking at the Bible and to yell at the pages, "No! Stop! What's wrong with you guys?!" I know how the story goes, the Bible documents countless times of humanity's constant wavering in their faith and trust in God, and in return getting themselves into terrible situations. But I have to acknowledge, one thing that always strikes me about the Bible is even though many years have passed between these stories and our current time, the Bible tells us "‭What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun," Ecclesiastes 1:9 NIV‬. The same pattern of God redeeming mankind, and eventually man turning away from God to return to the very thing he saved them from, continues to happen regularly today.

I believe there are many reasons for this: arrogance, pride, greed, the list goes on. Another powerful reason that I can personally relate to is when we have unhealed, traumatic memories, that we allow to continue to have power over us. Satan absolutely loves a person who is stuck in the past, because he loves to get in there and poke at the wound and make it hurt again. In our pain, we can sometimes fail to trust in God's goodness and take things into our own hands to try and cope. We can say things like, "God, why won't you take this pain from me?" I believe that this perspective of wanting God to teleport us out of a painful event or memory fails to have a biblical foundation, it's main focus is finding a quick fix for our present situation.

After years of being enslaved by Egypt, God redeemed ancient Israel and promised to bring them into the promised land, a land "flowing with milk and honey." God of course could have teleported Israel right then and there into that land, but instead he led them on a long journey through the desert and wilderness to get there. Many of the ancient Israelites complained against God and longed for their old life, not trusting God in his promises and instead trusting on what they could see with their eyes that could be a "quick fix" to whatever problem was in front of them.

In complete honesty, at various points I have found myself too focused on the pain in front of me and I too have longed for things that God had already freed me from. I have even temporarily returned to some of those things, only to find that in the long run those things actually made things worse for me, just like I remembered. At one point I remember asking God why I had to walk through something very painful that I was going through, and I very clearly felt him tell me, "because you can." At the time it really wasn't the answer that I was looking for, but looking back I can see that I was stronger than I thought I was and that God had equipped me with all that I needed to walk through that point in my life, I just needed to trust him. Several years later from that event now, I can see all of the growth and trust that happened while I was walking through that incredibly difficult period of my life. If God had simply beamed me out of that rough spot and fast forwarded to the future, I would not have grown at all in my faith or in my personal qualities that he is now using for his purposes. 

My question for all of us today is, regardless of where we're at in our walk, are we trusting God at his promise to take us to that same promised land? Or do we find ourselves longing for the things that he has freed us from, looking for a quick fix to our present situation rather than trusting that he is walking alongside of us and will get us to the destination he has promised? God is good, and he will do as he promised, the choice to trust is up to us.