Looking Back

What do you find when you look back on your life? Do you see your mistakes and your regrets? Do you focus more on your accomplishments and your successes? I think there’s something else that we can see if we look for it.

As I’ve been reading through the Bible this summer, the whole history of Israel has been laid out before me in a very short time. So many times of rebellion and disobedience, of confusion and misperception about God, and a few people who knew God intimately: Abraham, Moses, David. But on the whole, if you look at the history of the Israelites, you see some times of being faithful to God, but mostly mutiny and defiance and just plain foolishness.

I read Psalm 107 yesterday, which catalogues some history, some situations various people found themselves in, and how God delivered them, and ends with this verse: “Those who are wise will take all this to heart; they will see in our history the faithful love of the Lord.”

It’s true. The most consistent, overriding element of the history of the Israelites is the faithfulness of God. He’s the hero of the story. He continued to rescue and deliver them, to forgive and redeem them, time after time after time, in spite of their habitual rebellion. His faithful love. His loving kindness. His mercy and grace, given to a people so undeserving.

But am I any different? Am I any less rebellious and disobedient? I fail to trust Him, I do things my own way, I forget about Him. There have also been times of obedience and growth. And yet my history, too, is His Story. I see, in my history, the faithful love of the Lord. His mercy. His grace. How He never gave up on me, but continued to shower me with blessings, to teach me, to lead me, and to invite me to know Him. That is what I want to see when I look back.  Not my failures. Not my accomplishments. But the faithful love of the Lord. He's always doing something, and it's always something good. When I look back, the most important thing about me is Him.