Rearview Mirror

 For those of you who have followed my blog for any length of time have seen that my brain works in mysterious ways!

So I was inspired with a spiritual application while driving my SUV and looking in the review mirror....stay with me...and hopefully it will make sense ( I pray!)

The rearview mirror is used to see dangers or possible problems coming from behind, we use it to direct us backwards,  but that is not the way we primarily use a vehicle. They are to move us forward....that is their purpose.

But we don't use the review mirror to go forward. Our course would not be that straight if we were looking behind while trying to go forward....

Ahhhhh.

How many of us try to do that in our lives, we are so focused on our past, what we left behind, that we can't continue to move forward.

Our past, is important. It has created new awareness, lessons learned. There are those we love that we have had to move forward without.

But forward we have to move...

📖 .....And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. Hebrews 12:1b-3

 remembering the more we keep our thoughts, and hearts in the past the less we can do in the here and now.

 📖 Let your eyes look straight ahead;

    fix your gaze directly before you.
26 Give careful thought to the paths for your feet
    and be steadfast in all your ways. Proverbs 4:25-26

We use our rear view to see possible dangers, potential threats. 

We can use our past to help be aware of what may be a problem in the future. 

We must always be alert to what the devil may try 

📖  Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings. 1 Peter 5:8-9

We have the past, ours and others, to help us learn things to avoid.

The Bible is full of lessons, stories from the past for us to use to help us navigate forward. 

📖 Your word is a lamp for my feet,

    a light on my path. Psalm 118:105

It seems contradictory, "Don't dwell in the past , but use the past to help us move ahead"

When we can not take our focus off the past; mistakes, hurts, losses or tragedies, we've let them rule our hearts, causing anger, bitterness, unforgiveness, deep stifling sorrow, it is then we are staring in the rearview mirror and have ceased moving forward.

God desires us to work and move forward toward Our heavenly end.

📖   being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.    Philippians 1:6

📖 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.   Matthew 6:33

Use our rearview to help us, not drag us to the point of stagnation. 

🙏Dear Lord, please help us keep our eyes fixed forward on You, help is to use our rearview as a comfort, a tool, a gage. Continue to be the Light showing us the way forward. Amen.❤️