Sitting here pondering in prayer...looking at the blank page...."What would you have me share Lord?"
"Share your heart..." comes the reply.
So my gaze redirects and I look and ponder within...Seeking Him in my heart and seeking Him in the recent events...the event called New Years...a time of traditions...our eyes attentive to New York and the ball dropping...that grand moment where we sing...and oddly Godly..those traditions are based on...recalling, remembering...pondering ...singing...Auld Lang Syne...I always loved the Scot's heritage their unique cultural make up I sort of...identified with....I felt comfortable with...I'd read the poem...and like many... heard the song based on it...As the Scots singing the song on Hogmanay or New Year's Eve became a Scots custom that spread to other parts of the British Isles. As Scots (not to mention English, Welsh and Irish people) emigrated around the world, they took the song with them...and so many of us followed suit making it part of what we do on New Years day...from Wikipedia, "The song's Scots title may be translated into standard English as "old long since", or more idiomatically, "long long ago","days gone by" or "old times". Consequently, "For auld lang syne", as it appears in the first line of the chorus, might be loosely translated as "for (the sake of) old times"....I was blessed many years ago to hear a phrase that I share to this day " The past is a place of reference...not of residence" that spoke to me as I was constantly dealing with the past....either as an excuse, or a reason...both wrong things to do...Amen? Was also blessed in my relationship with Jesus in His Word...
As shared by Paul in Philippians 4 “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.”
It has been revealed to me that if I ever thought "I made it! or I got it! or I really understand it!"...I have not...just when I thought I figured it out...I hadn't...chuckles like bowling, after that perfect strike I thought "Well now I got it! OK 300 game here we go!" ahhh ...no...then comes the gutter ball and I am as before left scratching my head...so it is in my relationship with God...just when I think I had it figured out..a lot of it was because I was looking in the past...and now wondering about all those times I almost...got it. There is no way to be looking forward while still looking back at “what lies behind” and you can’t strain forward and press ahead by looking over your shoulder. We are only pilgrims in this world and we are looking ahead to a better future so it doesn’t do believers any good to keep looking back all the time. Imagine trying to drive a car by using the rearview mirror. That’s an accident waiting to happen, isn’t it?...For the sake of the old times...Auld Lang Syne...There is for me a precedent...Should old acquaintance be forgot....When I do look back...and I do...I remember...the night we first met...those milestones in our lives...when we first "met" Jesus...When He revealed Himself in a way that touched and opened our heart...when we made that good choice welcoming Him home...when we said "I do" we remember that "anniversary" of that commitment.
Our Father is so much God of the future...creator of time that He is...
...and it is important and the Holy Spirit's job...to remind us of what Jesus said....and I recall...
Luke 9:62
But Jesus said to him, “No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”
And as He also reminds us in Genesis 19 “But Lot’s wife, behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.”
Here is a reminder for all of us. Once we come out of the world, like our so-called exodus from sin, we must put the past behind us and press ahead and not look back. When Lot’s wife looked back, she didn’t do it out of curiosity or just to see the destruction of Sodom. She looked back longingly, desirously, and coveting what she had left back in Sodom. She looked back because she wanted to go back. Much like the Christian who comes out of the world but still has to live in the world we look back on the world.
This is why Jesus told His listeners “Remember Lot’s wife!” in Luke 17
Remember Lot’s wife. Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it. I tell you, in that night there will be two men in one bed: the one will be taken and the other will be left. Two women will be grinding together: the one will be taken and the other left. Two men will be in the field: the one will be taken and the other left.”
And they answered and said to Him, “Where, Lord?”
So He said to them, “Wherever the body is, there the eagles will be gathered together.”
Something to chew on this new year....To taste and see...
So as we press forward...let us always...
Rock and Roll! Jesus is the Rock....and we Roll!
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