About a year ago, I was in my van, at a standstill, waiting for someone to turn left in the road ahead of me. I was minding my own business, when another driver who was not keeping his mind on his own business, smashed into me at full speed.
Crunched car.
Spine absorbing impact.
Real life. True story.
This was not the most convenient day to have to stand at the side of the road in the Canadian wind and snow, -40 Celsius weather, on the edge of the city. I had already had a dead battery that morning, dropped my cell-phone in a snow bank and was just coming home from a lymph drainage treatment (one of my post-cancer therapies). All that, and it was barely noon.
I should’ve been going home to a warm cup of coffee and some lunch.
Maybe some comfort and coddling.
Instead, after looking in my rear-view mirror and seeing Lightning McQueen slam into the back-side of my family van, it seemed decidedly unfair to have to sort out these accident details in the whipping wind and snow.
It wasn’t even my fault and now here I was, at the side of the road trying to pry my license out of my wallet with frozen fingers, and trying to use a pen (in which the ink had actually frozen!) to exchange info and details.
That was not a great day. Not for me or my van.
At some point weeks afterward, I began to realize that I had developed this nervous habit of repeatedly looking in my rear-view mirror hoping that the car behind me was really going to stop.
Obviously I was a little paranoid. I remember having another one of those little adrenalin surges and impulse thoughts, “He’s too close! He’s going to hit me!”
Despite my realization of God’s protection over me and the miraculous lack of injury one month earlier (only minor whiplash), somehow my big question continued to be “will I be rear-ended again, and be injured worse”?
Suddenly I heard God say, “You’ve gotta stop trying to move forward while looking backward.”
I know that Voice. I know there is Depth beneath the seemingly casual remark in my mind.
God’s wisdom always hits the mark. Sets me free. Helps me get untangled and move forward. I spent a few moments asking my dear Father exactly what He meant.
The past few weeks flooded into my brain. I knew this wasn’t just a Driver’s Ed course from God. There was a deeper work being done. And what He was saying that day fit with the all the other things He’d been talking to me about. Which is exactly how God speaks: consistently, truthfully and lovingly, through all things natural and supernatural!
That accident was a lot like those life situations that have surprised me, caught me off guard, and pushed my life into directions I wish it hadn’t gone:
Childhood abuse.
Relationships that flail.
Post-secondary education that didn’t really pan out into the career that I had hoped for.
And my brain works overtime looking in the rear-view mirror of my life.
Wondering what I could’ve done differently to not have been ‘in the wrong place at the wrong time’ and not have been taken advantage of.
Wondering why all the sanctified effort I put into relationships doesn’t always feel like the happy, shiny, relationships that seem to fall into other people’s laps.
Wondering why I didn’t ever seem to find the career path that my gifts and skills could have chiseled out for me.
You know the list. Maybe you have one too.
You’ve gotta stop trying to move forward while looking backward.
As I turned the corner, and drove into my driveway I sort of wanted to rip my rear-view mirror off the front windshield as a prophetic gesture. [Insert laughter!] I could really use the reminder to not look backwards in life.
What are you saying to me in the moment Lord?
Speak Lord, Your servant is listening.
Some scriptures started coming to mind … just another one of the ways God’s words of Hope Breaks Through:
“Behold the plans I have for you”, says the Lord, “Plans to prosper you, and not to harm you. Plans to give you hope and a future …” (Jeremiah 29:11 NIV).
That seems a little more like looking ahead in life: God’s Hope helping me look forward instead of backwards.
Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up, do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland… because I provide water in the desert and streams in the wasteland, to give drink to my people, my chosen, the people I formed for myself that they may proclaim my praise. (Isaiah 43:18-21 NIV).
I cry out to God Most High, to God, who fulfills His purpose for me. He sends from heaven and He saves me … God sends His love and faithfulness. (Psalm 57:2-3 NIV)
Seems like I there’s no way, actually, that I can mess up bad enough to disqualify myself from God helping me out. He isn’t unaware of what is going on in my life – in fact, He makes sure that the good plans He has for me come to pass … as I call out to God, He leans over and gives me a hand in whatever way I need it, no matter what is going on around me in my life, His intervention is even beyond what I can see with my eyes and feel with my heart.
Not that I have obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead. I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:12-15 NIV)
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, not any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. (Romans 8:37-39 NIV)
The rearview mirror in my car is now another reminder of how very present God is,
how capable He is of gathering my attention,
and giving me yet another strategy for daily life.
Another moment handcrafted by God; a gentle reminder to look forward and not back in life. I can live free from emotional pain and anxiety; trusting my God because He is my peace and gives me new vision in the moment.
His profound words of Hope Breaking Through and setting hearts free.
It is really possible: if He’s done it for me He will do it for you!
Do you have a rear-view mirror that keeps you from moving forward? Talk to God about it today. He delights in loving you well, and setting you free, with His peace and great expectations for your future.
Copyright (c) 2019 Jennifer Bryant-Choong. All Rights Reserved.
