Looking Back to Appreciate the Future

I'm not naturally a "look back" kind of guy. I like to think about the future...it energizes me. My wife on the other hand likes to look back at life. She is a reminiscer. Jen can take a whole day and just sit and look at boxes and boxes of pictures and think about how things used to be. I grew up in a family that didn't take many pictures while my wife comes from a home where you would think that Olin Mills is one of her parents. Or we can be riding down the road and she can see any number of restaurants and ask me, "Do you remember the first time we ate at....insert restaurant name" I have no idea! I just normally don't take the time to look back but I'm changing I think.

Life has changed a lot over the past year and I'm learning to appreciate looking back at where God has taken us. What I'm learning is looking back is essential to having a vision for the future. As God calls us to things that we have not experienced before the sense of hope and trust often come from seeing where He has shown up in the past. So I'm learning to look back and see what He has done so that I will have the guts to keep moving forward.

I thought I might take the next few post to think back over the past few years and how God has led us and challenged us and changed us as a family and as a new church. As I mentioned in the previous blog God is resetting our default on the church. For me this is something that has been taking place for over a year and a half and I hope will continue. So in the days to come I will plan to share where we've been to get a better understanding of where we are headed.

I will also be adding in some thoughts from the Gospel of John because that is what we are studying at Summit Church on Sunday mornings. Today I read from John 1 on John the Baptizer. I'm pretty sure he was a wild dude. Wouldn't you have to be to eat what he ate and dress like he dressed? I'm teaching on John the Baptizer next Sunday so I'll fill you in on what I learn about him as I study over the next week...