The Windshield or the Rearview Mirror?

If you are reading this post, you have one thing in common with every other human being on the planet. You have a past. By the end of this post, I hope you also know that you also have a future! That past is filled with successes and failures, both big and small. That past is filled with smiles and also with tears. It is filled with things we are glad to share with others, and it is filled with things we keep hidden from others, or at least “hidden” until the paparazzi or TMZ show up. Did you know that TMZ, the celebrity news website, actually stands for thirty-mile zone, which represents the studio zone within a 30-mile radius centered at the intersection of West Hollywood Boulevard and North La Cienega Boulevard in Los Angeles?

You have heard it said that in life there are no do-overs. Well, that is true for all but one hour every year. When we turn the clocks back one hour each fall (this year on November 6), technically for that one hour, you and I could do-over what we had originally done in that hour, since the hour between one and two o’clock occurs twice.

In reality, we cannot go back and do-over. Yesterday is gone, it is history, and history cannot be changed. What is in the past is truly in the past. In part, our past (both good and bad) makes us who we are today. While we are all influenced by our past, we do not have to let our past dictate the present or the future. Think of it like this – your car’s rearview mirror shows you where you just came from, what is behind you, but if you only look in the rearview mirror, and fail to look out the windshield to see where you are going, well, the results, disastrous.

When we put our trust in Jesus and follow him, no pain is too great nor no hole too deep to climb out of. When we wait upon the Lord, he hears our sincere cries. David wrote this in Psalm 40:1-2 – I waited patiently for the LORD; he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.

The apostle Paul knew he could not dwell upon his past sins and failures. He writes this, found in Philippians 3:12-14 – Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead. I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

Paul was not saying that he obliterates any memory of his past. But rather, he consciously refuses to let it absorb his attention and impede his progress. We too, no matter how cluttered our past is with pain and junk, can “forget what is behind and strain toward what is ahead.”

So, don’t wish for do-overs. Instead, accept the past as the past. And look for ways to leverage your past for a better tomorrow; keep your eyes looking out the windshield. Don’t keep looking in the rearview mirror.

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