Someone once said, “I can’t go back. I can’t stay here. I must move forward.” The first time you drive a car, you quickly realize that you cannot put the car in drive and reverse at the same time. Nor can you (or should you) move forward while looking back. A quick glance out of your rear view mirror is all that is needed before putting the car in drive and moving forward.
Several years ago, author Sharon Jaynes shared this poem on a Christian television program and she was nice enough to email it to me afterwards:
Just as my child brings his broken toys to me to mend
I took my broken dreams to God because He was my friend.
But then instead of leaving Him in peace to work alone,
I hung around and tried to help with ways that were my own.
At last I snatched them back and cried, “How could you be so slow.”
“What could I do my child,” He said, “You never would let go.”
When you begin to look forward, God will begin to move you forward. God wants to do a new thing in your life this year and take you places you’ve never dreamed of going. If that sounds scary, it’s not. God is a good God and His plans and purposes for your life are also good. His plans are to prosper you and not to harm you, to give you a hope and a future.
When God restores, the end is always better than the beginning. Your job is to simply get out of reverse, stop dwelling on the past and allow God to move you forward into the extraordinary future He has for you, starting today!
So the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning (Job 42:12)