The muscles that make up the motor system of the human neck will allow the head to swivel from left to right and with a hard shift of the eye muscles to either side, the ability to see what’s behind may be possible as long as the object is static. For the most part, the head is not made to be twisted backward. In fact, the normal range of neck movement ends when the chin aligns with the shoulder. The best way to see what’s behind us is to stop and turn around.
Living in regret is like stopping all forward movement and turning around. It’s like building a monument of respect to the place or the thing that nearly destroyed us. It is an alter of sorrow; pity even. It’s the would’ve, could’ve, should’ve futility we know to be completely unproductive yet, it is often a place of repeated visitation.
Rather, there should be a marker and a testimony to go in that spot. The marker is the place where life change happened; the “road closed” warning not to proceed further. The testimony is the story of how God provided a means of escape.
God never meant for us to live our lives looking backward and He has always taken repentant souls forward from the situation (the marker) they were in. Consequences notwithstanding, whatever ground we are currently standing on is an important marker of forward movement in our lives. Going back to old failures is like turning around from the place God is leading you and honoring the place you left behind. It’s dangerous! For Lot’s wife it was her final condemnation. Gen. 19:26.
God is our Father who wants us to move forward and not to languish in our past sinfulness. The father of the prodigal son was not interested in the details of his son’s indiscretions; they were not a factor in his forgiveness! The fact that the son had returned was cause to celebrate and move forward. Luke 15: 11-32.
There is no need to contort ourselves unnaturally in an attempt to peer back at failure nor is there a reason to stop our forward progress for sympathetic visitation to monuments of imperfection. Those things belong to the enemy!

God, help me to go forward from the ground I am standing on

geebeekay's avatar
Gordon Keith is husband, father and retired military officer with a passion for the poetic expression of deep thought through written word. A world traveler with a history of unique social entanglements, his views, though often opinion-driven are tempered by Christian discretion. A lover of Jesus and jazz, his dream of the perfect composition would play like sheet music to a beautifully orchestrated reappearance of the Messiah.

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