Do you spend more time thinking about the future or the past? Why?
I try not to think of the future or the past, if I can help it. It’s too easy to let the imagination get carried away dreaming grand dreams for the future, and too simple to let the mind dwell on all that has gone before.
Yet, I do often think of the past.
I find myself wondering how different life would be if I had made different decisions along the way. I think about the events of my life and how, for better or worse, they have formed me. I wonder whether there is anyone who knows absolutely all of my past and still chooses to be with me in the present anyway.
I guess the good news is that there is someone.
Jesus came into the world to restore our relationship with God the Father. Isn’t that incredible?
I was reading Genesis 16 this morning and Hagar speaks of the God who sees her. It is quite something to think of. How many of us have a longing to be really seen? To be known and understood, and loved and affirmed anyway?
So, yes, I think of the past. I wonder how it might be different, not because I am unhappy with the status quo, but because that’s what my mind does: wonders. And I do wonder, and marvel, that there is a God who sees me – all of me – and chooses to be with me in the present and I know he will be with me in the future.
A New Mission 