Be real about the past

It's human nature. We can't avoid it no matter how hard we try. We all do it.

We romanticize the past.

I read a story this week of a young woman who was reminiscing about her youth and she wrote: "I loved my uncle's ranch when I was a child! There was space to run unhampered, freedom to explore. The dust lay inches thick upon the trails, and running barefoot down the path of sifting powder was a sumptuous sort of feeling. The barn was my playground, full of animated toys. . . . The mint grew wild and plush beside the creek, and my aunt made berry pies and the smell would seek me out wherever I played . . . "

She goes on, however, to infuse some "reality" into those memories:

"If I am not careful, Lord, I can edit out these memories and forget that I got a bee sting where I picked the mint, and burned my tongue time and time again on the berry pies . . . or that the barn smelled just awful, or that the horse made my bottom sore, and the dust that felt like sifted powder made me sneeze all summer. . . . . But if I'm wise, I will remember that all of life has both of these things in it."

Many Christians fail to do God's work in the present because they are too busy romanticizing the past.

Lest we get carried away reminiscing about how "perfect" the past was, let's not forget that ALL of life--past, present, and future--has its good and bad points.

Let's be real about the past.