Remember When …

Were things really better before we followed God’s way? What’s the lure of looking back when we’ve got the present?

What was it that was so special about that place? Sometimes we forget to regret the past and instead long for joy that may not have even existed. When my wife and I came into the Church of God, I was working at a music store, and we were living in our own little humble apartment in Milford, Pennsylvania. We were in our early 20s and always out doing something! It seems so perfect. I was manager of the store, and she was moving her way up in her job. Looking back, on face value it seems that life was great.

When God called us into the Church, things changed. We moved back home. My wife became pregnant. I lost my managerial position, and she struggled to find a good job. We spent a lot of time wondering and arguing about what could have been and sought desperately for better opportunities while struggling to maintain that wonderful calling.

What was so great about Egypt?

When we page through the book of Exodus, we see how the Israelites were called out of bondage by God and led through the wilderness. They started out with joy, but soon we find them miserable and afraid. Three days after they had crossed the Red Sea on dry land, they complained (15:24). In less than a month, they longed to be back in Egypt (16:3).

What was so special about that place? “We ate bread to the full!” they proclaimed, but was that really how they looked at it when they were enslaved? If we go back to the beginning, God says, “The cry of the children of Israel has come to Me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them” (Exodus 3:9).

Looking back

So—was life great? What did we forget about our previous apartment? When my wife and I sit down and really talk about what once was and who we were, we are often chagrined and repulsed to remember what it was really like.

You see, our apartment was old and falling apart. We had virtually no friends and were willing to drive over an hour home every weekend. We longed to get away from the responsibility of constant weekend attention to a store that didn’t provide well enough to fill the fridge with decent food. And the neighborhood was a sanctuary for many obscure and obscene lifestyles. In reality, we were alienated and desperate for fruitful relationships.

Oh, we found a lot of good there. And while we longed to leave, when we had left, we longed to go back. What happened to Lot’s wife when she turned to look back at her old home with longing? And what happened to literally thousands of Israelites who longed for Egypt? They died!

Solomon says, “Do not say, ‘Why were the former days better than these?’ For you do not inquire wisely concerning this” (Ecclesiastes 7:10). This is wise advice. This life is “but a vapor,” and we so vainly seek to pleasure ourselves with things that don’t matter. Fitting in, blending in, compromising—they’re all unworthy of a true Christian life.

Looking to the future, appreciating the present

As Christians, we need to remember that the future is far more important than the past. Being a Christian is just as important in the present as it is in the future. Remembering that the apostles “forsook all and followed Him” (Luke 5:11), we should do likewise.

John Columbo, 28, is married and has two small children. He attends the Church of God, a Worldwide Association, in Allentown, Pennsylvania.