I love to reminisce. Who doesn't? You get a chance to replay fond memories in your mind and relish in the past. You relive the moments that made your heart melt: your first love, your best concert, your first big break, your new love, your old love, your first child. All those moments that we go to when we're not in a good place or when we're in a good place but wish it to be better. Memories are fantastic. They're like our little invisible moving-pictures in our heads and hearts that only we can see. Memories are good and all but let me tell you the Dangers of Nostalgia.
I'm a sensitive soul. I've been blessed and burdened with a deep reservoir of emotions and as such, I read like an open book. I wear my heart on my sleeve and I romanticize things I probably should not. I look, always, for the good in people, situations and things. So, when you ask me about my memories, I, like you, tend to remember mostly the good times. Have you ever seen the old movie, "The way we were"? It's the classic tale of love lost due to circumstance. Robert Redford and Barbara Streisand fall in love but are doomed to love each other from afar. Circumstances pull them apart and like many of us, they break up to make up, but one of those break-ups seals the deal. Robert goes off and marries and one day, he sees her across the way and they just stand and stare at each other, romanticizing about the love they had and still have for each other but cannot pursue. How sad, right? Don't we all have that story? The love that we let go or the love that let us go that we wish we could have one more chance at? Aaaaah, sweet Nostalgia!
"Memories, like the corners of my mind. Misty, water-colored memories, of the way we were...." Sweet song, sung by Barbara at the end of the movie that is sure to bring any true romantic to tears. But, that's just what they are....memories and why do we continue to engage in Nostalgia? Well, that's easy. When in pain, we tend to take mental flight to a perceived yesteryear. When things are bad or not as good as we'd like them to be, we tend to go back to the past. But, what we end up doing is painting ourselves a picture of delusional grandeur. Sometimes, when we look back, we rewrite the narrative better than it actually was. Like the movie, "The way we were", we can ask one simple question, "Was it all so simple then or has time rewritten every line?" When we remember the past, often times, we only remember the laughter. We try not to remember the fighting, the pain and the tears.
Why must we hold on to the past instead of holding tight the present that is right here. We lost a love, a job, a moment, an experience, a time but have one right in our grasp but are so busy reminiscing on something that didn't work out for whatever reason and end up losing out on something that could be so great right now. When you hold so tightly to the past, God will allow you to relive them and you'll again see why it is that you let it go in the first place. But, what if things are going badly? How do you deal with a horrible past and a not so great present? I can tell you how. Hold zealously to the promise of a great future. Embrace the possibilities: Jeremiah 29: 5-7, sums it up just nicely. You must learn to seek the city in which you reside instead of seeking peace elsewhere. When you do otherwise, you block your blessings. Be happy where you are and who you're with and put your all into that which is present instead of putting your energy into a past that is gone.
Imagine this. You've rented all your life but dream of owning a home, but you can't even take care of the apartment you live in. You allow it to fall down around you. You don't put up any pictures or even furnish it because you tell yourself this is not where you really want to be. You don't scrub and clean it and you take no pride in it. Why should God trust you with a home?
You're single and dreaming of your groom or bride to be, but you live a single life of shame. You're out partying, getting drunk and carrying yourself in such a way that even if you met your Mrs. Right or Mr. Right, he/she would not even recognize you or even want to know you. How can God trust you with such a wonderful covenant as marriage if you can't/won't take care of the you he's given you?
Learn to take care of what you have now. Take pride in it and God will entrust you with your heart's desires. Zealously embrace the responsibility you have now so that you can zealously embrace the bigger one that is to come. I'm not lying to you. You know I wouldn't ;-)
God said it...."I have a plan for you..." You know the rest.
We get so set in our ways that we allow wonderful things to pass us. The Isrealites prayed for God to take them out of Egypt, out of Pharoah's rule and it took them forty years when it could have been one month. It's about trusting in what you can't see. We call it faith. They wasted all that time looking back to what they were used to, even though what they were used to caused them pain. How often do we do that? It took one day for God to take the Isrealites out of Egypt but 40 years to take Egypt out of the Isrealites. Learn to let go and let God. Learn to let the things of the past remain where they are so that you can give yourself a future well deserved.
If you know me and have had the privilege to drive with me, you know I am directionally challenged to the n'th power. I NEED my GPS. I need my GPS, even if I'm going up the block. Yes, it's that's bad. I depend on it to get me where I need to go. I should wear my glasses when I drive but most times, I don't. I'm stubborn I guess. I would so much easier get to my destinations if I had my GPS and my glasses but I remain stubborn. I travel for work and you can only imagine how used my GPS is as I go state to state.I know you can relate to this. As we're on our way, with your GPS in full effect, we listen for a while and follow the directions we're being given, just long enough to get comfortable. Then, out of nowhere, we start to see landmarks that we recognize and think we know where we're going and stop listening to the directions of the GPS person. We stop because we see something that looks familiar. We know a shortcut. I do it all the time. Do you, like me, find that we do this oftentimes when we're in a rush or when we have an important appointment? Why do we do that? Why don't we trust in the 'director' to get us to where we need to go to, especially if it's something that is so important? So, we veer off the path and try to do it alone, only to get lost. The GPS person doesn't get mad. He/she just simply says 'rerouting' and gives us another path to the same destination. But, we veer off again because we see something that looks familiar and get lost, AGAIN! Now, we get frustrated, as if it wasn't our fault in the first place for not following directions. We're late to where we need to be and now angry. But the GPS calmly says, 'rerouting'.
