Life is made up of ups and downs, positives and negatives, good and bad, success and failure etc.
Irrespective of what happens, life must go on. And as life goes on, there is one thing that we must avoid doing and that is Looking Back.
The desire to look back is so easy to influence our reasoning and actions.
This is because it is the past that we have experienced not the future.
Gen 19:26
"But Lot's wife looked back as she was following behind him and she turned into a pillar of salt"
The most important thing from the scripture is not the woman turning into a pillar of salt but the fact that she looked back.
The Hebrew word for look back is 'to consider'.
The question therefore is why did she looked back?
Before Lot's wife looked back there was a target ahead of her, a goal she must acheive, and that was for her to escape into the mountains (vs 17), but that was less of importance to her than looking back.
Many of us are like Lot's wife- whether you are a man or woman.
We are tempted to look back when the going gets tough.
What we have behind us is our Past- i.e. past failures, successes, joy,achievements, disappointments, sorrows, awards, mockery, insults and so on.
So looking back means considering the things of the past or paying attention to them.
That is what Lot's wife did, she considered the things of the past- thus her past life.
She was leaving the past behind and she couldn't come to terms with that.
She considered leaving her family, friends, money, properties and projects behind her and that was very difficult to do.
Sometimes it becomes difficult to leave the past behind.
There are only two things in the past; our Failures and Successes.
So whenever we look back we tend to consider either one of them; our sad moments (failure) or happy moments (success).
THE DANGER
Whenever we look back there is the danger of not continuing the journey again, and that is what happened to Lot's wife.
She ended the journey right there on the spot, the moment she considered the wealth of things she was leaving behind.
Take note that the past distracts us and we lose focus, as a result we are left behind by those we started the journey of success with.
like I have said earlier two things are in the past, failure and success.
- FAILURE
Our failures in life imposes a certain amount of fear in our hearts and this hinders us from moving forward.
Whenever we fail in life, we feel disappointed, undervalued, discouraged and at some points we even lack the strength to rise again.
The fear of failure repeating itself hunts and discourages us from taking bold steps in the future.
Sometimes the people around us draws our attention to the fact that we have failed before so we need to be careful.
And the moment we give in to those examples of failure from our past life, we lose the mental edge to overcome its concequences.
This makes the journey too hard to continue whiles the task becomes too difficult to accomplish.
Failure, though, may have it's positives but in most cases we are moved to consider the negatives.
The fear of failing again hinders our success in the future.
Also failure drains us of hope that we can ride upon when going forward.
It makes us feel as if there is no hope left and that all hope is lost, like in the case of Lot's wife.
When she turned back she realised that she had failed in life. That is, she considered that everything she worked for over the years in Sodom had been burnt down to ashes within a twinkle of an eye.
She therefore lost hope of what lies ahead of them in the mountains.
This is because they did not even take any valuable asset with them.
Sometimes when we fail we lose the hope of starting all over again and we therefore give up on our quest to success.
But not all failures in life will let you start from the scratch.
- SUCCES
Success is good, it is sweet, it brings relief, it feels good, it calls for celebrations, fun and merry making and above all it gives one pride and makes them feel proud of their efforts.
No wonder it's being defined as "the accomplishment of an aim or purpose'.
It feels great whenever one is able to reach his/her target.
But the higher you go the tougher it becomes.
Whenever we look back to the past and we consider the successes that we have chocked, we end up relaxing, thinking that we have done it before so we can do it again.
Thus we become familiar with success.
When that happens complacency, pride and over confidence poisons our minds and we become swollen headed.
At the end, we fail to put in the necessary ingredients needed to reach higher heights.
Too much of success can even mislead us into thinking that we have achieved enough.
When we consider that we have had unprecedented success, then we can decide to rest or even stop there.
In Philippians 3:12, Paul said;
"I don't mean to say that I have achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection.........."
Pondering over these things from our past successes can makes us lose concentration and focus.
It even weakens our spirit of determination to carry on.
Success is good but considering too much past successes and victories is dangerous to the future target.
WHAT MUST WE DO?
Both success and failure have something in common when we consider them too much and that is they makes us lose focus.
That is why I am urging you never to look back.
Therefore, to avoid the temptations of the past (failure and success), we must do the simple thing that apostle Paul did ;
"forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead". Phil 3:14
If Lot's wife had forgotten about her past life and looked forward to a new life in the mountains (just as the others did), she would have been saved and lived.
Some people are like Lot's wife, they finds it very difficult to forget their past failures or successes.
They try to hold on to the past into the future but that would not be possible.
We have to let go of the past first before we can look (expect) forward into the future.
Greater things lies ahead of us.
God has arranged for those things ahead of us and it is when we forget what we have suffered in the past, can we reach out to what lies ahead of us.
The glories that lies in the future cannot be compared to the failures and successes of the past. Just as the scriptures says,
'the future glory of this temple [you] will be greater than its past glory, says the Lord of Heaven's Armies'. Hag 2:9
The past will discourage you but the future will encourage you.
The past will make you lose hope but the future will give you hope.
The past will tell you its enough but the future says there is more to be done.
Looking into the future will always give you the desire to thirst for more greater glory
NEVER LOOK BACK, the future has something greater for you.
@henryyeboah