I have this app on my phone called Timehop. It pulls from my facebook to show me what I posted on this exact date each year. It's a fun way to look back and giggle at immature statuses, goofy pictures, or my sweet baby when he was younger. Here is what I stumbled upon today:
This is an engagement picture of me and my now husband taken exactly three years ago. I was a news reporter living in my own apartment. I was eating take-out every night, swimming every weekend, and hanging out with this handsome guy in between. We were counting the days until our wedding. I had big dreams and was heading to them. I had it together...or at least I thought I did.
I have been reading through the Old Testament, and I have learned a lot from the Israelites (mostly about what not to do!) The Israelites were in harsh slavery for 400 years to the Egyptians. They prayed for God to rescue them, and He sent Moses to plead with Pharoah for their freedom. After many plagues, Pharoah let them go. God led them by a cloud during the day and by fire at night! Along the way, Pharoah changed his mind about letting his former slaves go, so he sent his army to chase after them. While this is happening, the Isrealites approached the Red Sea. They see the army chasing them from behind and the Red Sea in front of them. Here is what they said to Moses in Exodus 14:
“Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians’? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!”
Moses told them not to be afraid and watch God's deliverance. And deliverance, it was! The sea was parted and they walked across completely dry, while Pharoah's army drown in it.
Later, as the Israelites are roaming the wilderness, they became hungry. In Exodus 16, they said, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.” So God provided food for them each day called "manna." It literally was bread that rained from heaven, and it was always just enough. Awesome, right?
Later, the Israelites became thirsty, and said, “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to make us and our children and livestock die of thirst?” (Exodus 17:3)
Then, they got tired of eating only manna and longed for the meat they had in Egypt. As I am reading complaint after complaint, I want to yell. They are a bunch of whiners! Were they blind? Could they not see that they were in slavery, and God freed them? Did they forget the miracles, or the way God provided for them in the wilderness? Were they so ungrateful that they kept looking back to what they once had, even though their present was so much better?!
That's when the conviction hit. I do the same thing.
I look back at these pictures and think of the "freedom" I had three years ago. The independent girl I once was. But I am looking out of a tainted window. Three years ago, my confidence was in my external beauty. My love for Peyton was shallow and selfish. I feared people. I feared failure. I considered myself an adventurer, but I truly did not know who I was in the Lord. I was living in past guilt instead of the freedom of Jesus Christ.
Three years ago, I did not know how powerful prayer is. I did not understand what it is like to love so much it hurts. I did not know how to serve. I had not been through a dark valley to teach me the meaning of true joy. I did not fully grasp how to be a woman of God. I do now...not because I got married and had children (as much as I adore them.) I learned these things from walking with the Lord...in the good times and bad.
I loved the season I was in three years ago. It is so fun to look back and be thankful for those precious memories. I even keep journals to remember prayers, special moments, and stories. But the moment I start longing for the past...that's where Satan starts his work. You see, Satan often blinds us by painting memories that just aren't true. He can twist our freedom, and tell us we were better off enslaved. Will I, like the Israelites, complain about my present circumstances, forgetting how much the Lord has taught me? Will I forget the slavery He has brought me from? I hope not. If we live in our past, we won't do much with our present. Of course Satan wants to steal our present! It is in the present where we are most effective.
Three years from now, I desire to look back at today and cherish each messy, chaotic, love-filled day with these babies. Though my circumstances will change, I pray that I keep growing and learning. I pray my view of God is bigger than the day before. Three years from now, I will see how strong He has made me through life's battles. I will take bigger leaps of faith. I will know more of who God created me to be. I won't have it all together, and that's okay. It's a journey, and I need to keep moving forward.
I want to look back and remember a God who delivers us from bondage.
I want to know His faithfulness in my present circumstances.
I want to look forward to His promises and adventures to come.
"No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead." Philippians 3:13
