The rear-vision mirror, whilst a handy device, can be a nuisance. It can be quite annoying to have someone following you on high beam:- then that which is designed as an aid becomes a nuisance. The glare from the rear stops you from seeing clearly to the front. The more mirrors you have the worse it is, especially if you have a couple of big external mirrors for towing. Let me suggest that the more rear-vision mirrors you have in your life the worse off you are. Most mirrors have a mounting device where you can click it up at night so that the light is refracted onto the front edge of the glass rather than onto the mirrored surface. This reduces the glare. We also need that in life.
The title of this article is the name of a book I saw advertised once. I haven’t read the book but the title expresses a truth important to the living of life. Paul said his life was a race toward a goal and runners do not strain for the ground they have already passed over, but for what lies between them and the finishing line. When you drive you look out the windscreen at the road you are driving, not in the rear vision over the ground you have covered. If you drive in the rear-vision mirror, you will crash (it has its purposes though, even as looking at the past does). I measured the size of the rear-vision mirror in our car and found it to be 1.6% the size of the front windscreen, yet it is adequate for the task. For some it seems that the rear-vision mirror is greater in size than the windscreen. Understanding this would help with some of the national problems we face in this country. If all the white people could stop pretending they were there when Captain Cook sailed up the east coast, and if all the black people could stop pretending they were alive when that same event happened and we all looked out the windscreen we would do a lot better. Our destiny lies in the future not the past.
Those that are in the habit of constantly retreating into and reliving their past tend to do it all their life. They are looking for a therapy there that doesn’t exist. They never get over it. If Peter had looked at his past all the time he would never have become the success he was – the past was failure – why focus on it?
Is there any value in the past? Obviously there is otherwise Rom. 15:4 wouldn’t make sense. More importantly, the history of Jesus 2000 years ago would not be relevant. To learn history is easy;to learn its lessons seems impossible. Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it. Memory is a precious gift and without it progress would be impossible. It is memory that enables us to carry the advantages of the past to the coming future. Remembering past history of the world is generally more profitable than remembering our own past history.
There are those who live in the past – not good. The dominating philosophy of life is that the past was better, my past was better, my happiness was only in the past. The past can dominate the present, and the future (Eccles. 7:10).
In Phil. 3:13 Paul says part of his philosophy of life included forgetting the things behind. Obviously he does not mean that in the absolute sense:- Paul in that very context recounts his past not only by inspiration but by personal memory. If anyone would have been burdened by the past it would have been Saul of Tarsus. Why did Paul imply we should forget the things that are behind? Because each time we look into the past we see the same old thing. The past is frozen and regardless of how many times we visit it, the same it will appear:- it will never change, and our part in the past will never change. It is the one road we travelled down when we could have travelled down many roads. This is in opposition to the future seen through the windscreen where many options are available. How many times should we revisit the past? Paul prayed three times for his sickness and then gave up. Pharoah’s butler remembered his sins but how often? Once every two years? (Gen. 41:1,9). Us? I guess it depends upon our attitude and habit. What is certainly true is that the past is not the Saviour.
Jimmy Barnes had a song called Khe San. It was the name of a military base in Vietnam. I don’t know who wrote it but it became a sort of anthem for Vietnam Vets. There’s a line in it that says, I’ve been back to South-East Asia, you know the answer it ain’t there. So true.
A number of things to consider: First, the memory of past sins and failures may only reproduce them (Phil. 3:12,13). The misery is we burden memory with thoughts and feelings which we must learn to forget: such things as sins. Brooding over sin is a very unhealthy habit. It can often be nothing more than a source of embarrassment for us. It is not the self-examination that God recommends. It only reproduces and increases sin. But you’ve got to worry about your sin! we cry. No, we need to repent of sin and move on. Repentance is not repining. Repentance is not the psychological flogging of ourselves with a mental cat-and-nine-tails! But is it safe to forget them? Yes, if God has forgiven and forgotten them, then why shouldn’t we? If I’ve had them washed away in the blood of the Lamb they have been dealt with and why should I bring them up again? Sins are forgiven to release us from the past:- we get a new sheet every day to go on to a new day and its possibilities, and so we don’t have to wallow in the past. I’m a bad person; I’m no good; I can’t forgive myself; I’m a failure; that’s the way I am; I tried that once etc: -these are signs one is looking in the rear vision mirror.
We also need to consider failures. These, too, may be remembered so as to quench all hope of improvement. It’s easy to regulate, even stifle our hope by the probabilities of the past, like calculations based upon statistics. Every time you return to a failure of the past it will be a failure:- it will never change unless you’ve started dreaming in unreality. Why retrace our steps back into the failures of the past? This years tomato crop in my garden did not dwell upon the fact that last year’s was a failure. It only looked at the present possibilities.
Now, the memory of past successes and attainments may detain us from more splendid triumphs (Phil. 3: 12-14). Heb. 10:32 alludes to a legitimate use of the past. Here were a people who had dropped their bundle but who could remind themselves they were capable of better. But if we make the past the standard of our performance, we cut down the possibilities of the present and the future. Someone once said, It would be better to forget our whole life, sins and all, than to look back with a sense of satisfaction. Contentment with the past is fatal to all progress. Christianity never meant us to dote upon a golden age in the past but to expect a golden age to come. Oftentimes it is the worst possible thing for a climber to look back down from where he has come. Don’t look down! is often good advice. “I’ve done a lot of work for the Lord”; “I need to retire from the Lord’s service”; “let the young people do it” – these are signs of looking in the rear-vision mirror.
By the power of forgetfulness we secure proper concentration of Christian purpose (v.13). We need to have our nature unified into a single glorious purpose. Paul says; This one thing I do……. So the past was not a distraction. His concentration upon the task ahead was the secret of his power and faithfulness.
And by the power of forgetfulness we achieve unity (Vs. 15,16). Paul; advises the Philippians to be “thus minded”: to be a people who will unite in forgetting the past to forge a unity. A common expression is, let bygones be bygones, and most times it’s good advice. Most squabbles are built upon and perpetuated by the past. Take away the memory and fresh beginnings are possible.
Vinet said, God….makes us date from where He pleases. (2 Cor. 5:17) – He creates a new man by separating us from our old selves. The apostle Paul was no longer Saul of Tarsus. They were two different men, who lived by two different rules, had different behaviours, different values, different priorities and different goals. Look through the windscreen of your life and see all the roads of service and development that there are for you to choose. Choose a dirt road so that when you glance in the rear vision mirror all you see is your dust! It is interesting that when Paul speaks about the things that belong to the Christian, he mentions things present and things to come, but makes no mention of the past.