A Backward Look vs. A Backward Longing

Back in the day, circa 1993, when country music was still country, Little Texas tossed out this ballad…
We can sit and talk about this all night long
And wonder why we didn’t last
Yes, they might be the best days we will ever know
But we’ll have to leave them in the past
So try not to think about what might have been
Cause that was then
And we have taken different roads
There’s no use giving in
And there’s no way to know
What might have been

There were many nights I heard that song called in to a radio station as Jane Doe and John Buck decided to call off their three-week-long high school romance that was budding as brightly as a non-blooming flower.

As melancholy as that tune might make us (and I apologize if it’s now stuck in your head), it does reveal a tendency we humans have. We tend to think a lot of the days that are behind us are better days than the ones we’re currently experiencing or the days that lie ahead. We find ourselves agreeing with the great theologian, Andrew Bernard, from The Office: “I wish there was a way to know you’re in the good old days before you’ve actually left them.”

Reminiscing and remembering are important. After all, we’re repeatedly told by God to remember his character and work, and it was God who gave us the mental capacity to recall memories.

As with many things in our life experience, such an ability is both a blessing and a burden. It’s a blessing to remember good times and pleasant memories. It’s even a blessing to remember God’s faithfulness to us or what he taught us during difficult seasons. It’s good to look back and see a Romans 8:28 application in our lives.

On the other hand, such opining can become a burden, as it did for some of the elder statesmen of Israel in the book of Ezra. Some of those guys were there when Solomon built the first temple, a magnificent structure that is impossible to accurately visualize. Some scholars believe that one of God’s purposes with the form and fashion of that temple was to give the faintest picture of the grandeur of heaven itself.

That temple would be destroyed by an invading Babylonian army in 586 B.C. Decades would pass before a second temple was built. Some of the guys who witnessed Solomon’s temple also saw its replacement. Their response makes it clear that, in their opinion, “the good old days” were when the first temple was constructed, and they were left wondering what might have been.

After the foundation of the temple had been laid, we’re told that “many of the older priests, Levites, and family heads, who had seen the first temple, wept loudly when they saw the foundation of this temple, but many others shouted joyfully” (Ezra 3:12). What emotion is usually expressed with weeping? Disappointment. Discouragement. Despair.

Was it bad to fondly remember the days of Solomon’s temple? No. But what happened in Ezra 3 was more than a backward look. It was a backward longing at the expense of a brighter future.

Renowned British evangelist G. Campbell Morgan said this about the actions of the elder statesmen in Ezra 3. “The backward look which discounts present activity is always a peril. Regrets over the past which paralyse work in the present are always wrong. Moreover all such regrets, as in this case, are in danger of blinding the eyes to the true value and significance of the present.”

Here we are, three days into a new year, with a lesson to learn about the past, present, and future. We can change nothing about the past, be they good old days, bad old days, or mediocre old days. The fact is, they’re old days. And while we can praise the Lord with a backward look, we cannot serve the Lord if we have a backward longing.

Don’t allow regrets over the past paralyze what God wants to do in the present. Don’t think about what might have been. Ponder what God is doing right now as you anticipate what he will do in the future. Adopt the posture of the other group of people there that day when the foundation of Temple 2.0 was laid. There were others who “shouted joyfully.”

I think Paul had a good idea. “But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead, I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:13-14)