Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Were The "Good Old Days" Really That Good?


"Do not say, Why were the old days better than these? For it is not wise or because of wisdom that you ask this."
Ecclesiastics 7:10 (Amplified)

In the Old Testament we read about God delivering Israel from bondage in Egypt.  The people of Israel were in "oppression" in Egypt (Exodus 3:7), they were "mistreated and afflicted" by the Egyptians (Deuteronomy 26:6), and there was even a time when the Pharaoh commanded the people of Israel to kill all of their baby boys (Exodus 1:16).  If you continue reading the story about Israel being delivered and their journey towards the land God promised them you see something very strange happening, the people of Israel started saying that they wished they were back in Egypt!  Over and over again when Israel ran into a problem in their present situation they said they would have been better off in Egypt.

What happened with Israel in the Old Testament sounds a bit crazy, people talking about going back into slavery just because things get difficult.  But what the Israelites did is the same thing that happens today when people talk about "The Good Old Days" and how wonderful things were in the past.   When we face a problem in life and things are difficult it is easy to look back to the past and think that everything was better back then.  If we are looking back to some time or situation in the past and believing that it was so much better than what we have now we are falling prey to deception. 

In Philippians 3:13, 14 Paul talked about forgetting the past and moving forward to the goal God has for us.  If you really take an objective look back, the "Good Old Days" were really not always as good as we remember.  If we stop or slow down to take a look behind us we will delay our process of moving forward and even create more problems for ourselves.  We need to stop being deceived by romantic views of the past and move forward in our life. God has a plan and a purpose for us and it is not found in the past but in our future!

1 comment:

Laura Mueller said...

What a wonderful post.