Harry S. Truman once said, "Men who live in the past remind me of a toy I'm sure all of you have seen. The toy is a small wooden bird called the 'Floogie Bird.' Around the Floogie Bird's neck is a label reading, `I fly backwards'. I don't care where I'm going. I just want to see where I've been." I have never seen or heard of a Floogie Bird, but I found this Truman saying to be fitting for this bulletin. Jesus spoke plainly about the danger of looking back to the previous life when He said, "...No man, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God" (Lk. 9:62). The Hebrew writer said, "...let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God" (Heb. 12:1,2).

There is another danger of holding on to the past. We as fallible humans will hold on to loss, grief and injustices. Acts committed against us can derail us from looking forward. Instead of pressing on we hold on to these grievances with bitterness, which poison our minds. There is a story about Robert E. Lee who visited a Kentucky lady. The lady took him to the remains of a grand old tree in front of her house. There she bitterly cried that its limbs and trunk had been destroyed by Federal Artillery fire. She looked to Lee for a word condemning the North or at least sympathizing with her loss. After a brief silence, Lee said, "Cut it down, my dear Madam, and forget it." It is better to forgive the injustices of the past than to allow them to remain and to let bitterness take root and poison the rest of our life. That is sound advice because it's found in the Word of God. Paul wrote, "Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, along with all malice" (Eph. 4:31).

There is however some value in looking back. The looking back I am referring to is the examples of those gone before us. Those people's stories that God chose to share with us. After all, it was Moses who would tell some of these very people: "And thou shalt remember all the way which the LORD thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in throe heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments (Dent. 8:2). We too need to look back and remember all that the Lord has done for us. Also we need to look back and remember Christ and His death for us in the Lord's Supper, but we also look ahead to the time when Christ will come again for us (I Cor. 11:24). We need to check our rearview mirrors occasionally when driving, but if we look back too much, we'll have an accident. When looking back keeps us from looking ahead, then we are disobeying God. Paul expressed the Christian's philosophy in these words: "Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus" (Phil. 3:13, 14).

Eric