Limiting The Future

Don’t Look Back by Lori Singh

It is heartbreaking to see so many people live their lives camping out in the past that cannot be changed and turning their backs on a grand future. We all know it is impossible to be effective in two places simultaneously and the only person who could accomplish that is God. We can never give one hundred percent of ourselves in the present if we keep dwelling on the past. Our potential will never reach its maximum capacity; future goals get delayed, insecurity and fear will dominate, the flesh will rule and life will become one heap of complaining. There is a lot at stake to remain, and truthfully your life will be unhappy.

At the end of forty days they returned from spying out the land. And they came to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation of the people of Israel in the wilderness of Paran, at Kadesh. They brought back word to them and to all the congregation, and showed them the fruit of the land. And they told him, “We came to the land to which you sent us. It flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. However, the people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large. And besides, we saw the descendants of Anak there. The Amalekites dwell in the land of the Negeb. The Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the hill country. And the Canaanites dwell by the sea, and along the Jordan.” But Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, “Let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it.” Then the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we are.” So they brought to the people of Israel a bad report of the land that they had spied out, saying, “The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people that we saw in it are of great height. And there we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim), and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.”

‭‭Numbers‬ ‭13:25‭-‬33‬ ‭ESV‬‬

The children of Israel found themselves in extreme bondage, they cried to God to deliver them, and God sent a deliverer. They experienced firsthand the goodness, kindness, protection, and provision of God. He split the Red Sea, he destroyed their enemies, he made bitter water sweet, he rained manna from heaven and fed them, their shoes never wore out, and their clothes were kept. He covered them, moved with them, and most of all loved them even when they complained. But they could not let go of the past and that blinded them to the glorious future God had for them.

Then the Lord said, “I have pardoned, according to your word. But truly, as I live, and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord, none of the men who have seen my glory and my signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and yet have put me to the test these ten times and have not obeyed my voice, shall see the land that I swore to give to their fathers. And none of those who despised me shall see it.

‭‭Numbers‬ ‭14:20‭-‬23‬ ‭ESV‬‬

They were eyewitnesses to the Promised Land flowing with milk and honey but because they did not rid themselves of the “Look back mentality” they saw the giants in the land rather than the big, big God with them. The past kept them in fear, and they doubted God’s plans. Because of their evil report of the goodness of God; they never made it to the promise land.

Today the stories told in this plan is of greater value than silver and gold. It may have been too late for the Israelites in the wilderness, but it’s not too late for you.

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.

‭‭Jeremiah‬ ‭29:11‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Living in the past is of great detriment to your future. I want to ask you today to leave the past behind, clear your heart of the clutter and take hold of the glorious future God has planned out for you. The past is over; God is about moving forward!

‬‬Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

‭‭Philippians‬ ‭3:13‭-‬14‬ ‭ESV

Holy Spirit, I thank you for the revelation I received, and I genuinely want to make it into the future God has for me. I am sorry I’ve wasted so much time on the things I cannot change, I am sorry for taking for granted what you so freely provide for me every day. I am sorry for robbing the people in my life because of the “look back mentality.” 

Holy Spirit, help me to forget the pain associated with the past and as I visit my past from now on let it be for only moments of remembering how you brought me out of bondage. Thank you, Abba for a new start!