Y is for Yearning for Yesterday is No Way to Drive

My oldest is 16 and learning to drive.

That is enough to cause fear in my heart. Ask any mother of a teen driver how they feel in those first months after that teen gets behind the wheel, and I’d bet you’d get similar reactions.

It’s a bit nerve wracking, and the things I do without even thinking are things my son needs to be taught and told to do.

Put your brights on.

Put your dimmers on.

Put your blinker on.

Check your mirrors.

It’s this check your mirrors thing that is one of the hardest concepts to master.

When do you check your mirrors?

Why do you check your mirrors?

For how long do you check your mirrors?

Life is kind of the same way.

Some of us have the tendency to barrel full steam ahead with our plans, never checking to see where we started, never slowing down to see who may be coming up from behind to either knock us off course or to lend a hand. We never check our starting points to be sure we have stayed on the straight and narrow path or to be sure that the detours we’ve taken have been worthwhile.

Others have the opposite tendency. They tend to be so caught up in looking in the rearview mirror that they never get to their destination; their purpose for the journey is unclear. As they look back they see their path stretching out, curved and broken behind them. They know the road they’ve travelled was not as it was meant to be traveled, but they are at a loss about how to straighten it. They cannot see their destination and, without knowing where they are going or what they are looking for, they cannot help but hit more potholes, sideswipe a few additional trees, and possibly hurt others along the way.

Life was never meant to be lived looking back at our yesterdays.

The Bible gives us many versions of the sentiment expressed in Ecclesiastes 7:10

Do not say: How is it that former times were better than these? For it is not out of wisdom that you ask about this.

When life hurts, there’s a tendency to stay locked in one position – reverse, longing for what we never had or what we had but lost; when this happens, looking in the mirrors too long, dwelling on yesterdays is more than that, it is destructive and dangerous.

Just like the young teenager learning to drive, we should all conscientiously check our mirrors to yesterday, tallying up where we’ve been and how the trip was before stepping out for the next leg of our journey,

But just like the young teenager learning to drive, if we spend too much time checking our rearview mirror, we get focused solely on our what is behind us and forget the promises God has for our future.

Nothing can cause a wreck faster than forgetting to focus on what is important.

Yesterday is yesterday.

Learn what you can from it.

Pray about it

but do not get stuck on it.

The world keeps on turning.

Share Your Story:

Sometimes it’s hard to pick yourself up and away from our yesterdays. Tell us what causes you to want to turn back to yesterday? How do you keep focused now?

God Bless…