The Good Old Days...

It's nearly 11pm. I have put the kids to bed, given my husband a dose of NyQuil (poor guy has a head cold) and put on my PJ's... but I'm far from sleepy. I drank a coke at dinner in anticipation of staying up late to watch a ball game, but we got rained out. So here we are at my regular bed time and I'm wide awake.

I thought I'd sit at the computer for a while, so I put on my robe. Something was in my pocket- a stale piece of a bagel from who knows when. Hmmm. One of those things that happens, I suppose. It did remind me, however, of something I wanted to write about: The Good Old Days.

A few days ago, I made pancakes for breakfast. (Hang in there, I'll get to the point.) The kids love them because I put food coloring in them to make them sort of tie-dyed. We call them Rainbow Pancakes. They are the only kind Courtney will eat at our house. It's become a fun little tradition.

So after our Rainbow Pancakes that day, I cleaned up the dining room and got the dishes done. Matthew took a nap while Courtney played. Several hours passed before Matthew woke up and started exploring the house again. He went under the table and started fiddling with Courtney's booster seat. I thought he was just playing with the straps, so I let him continue his little game, keeping a not-so-close eye on him while I made lunch. All of a sudden, I noticed him eat something green and then spit it out. He made an awful face and looked at me as if to say, "What IS this?!?" I crawled under the table and took the mystery snack from him- ah, a green tie-dyed pancake. It must have been lodged up under the booster seat.

The poor guy probably thought, SCORE! Pancakes! I love these things!! but was quite disappointed when he was met with a stiff, stale remnant of what was once a glorious breakfast.

A thought suddenly popped into my head: "Don’t long for 'the good old days.' This is not wise." Ecclesiastes 7:10.


Have you ever seen the movie, Napoleon Dynamite? Napoleon and his brother Kip have an uncle named Rico. He complains that his coach didn't put him in the game in the 4th quarter, so he feels like his whole life has been one big mistake since that day. He's stuck in the past and hasn't been able to move on. Rico still lives in the "good old days". He spends his time making videos of himself throwing a football out in an open field. It's pretty funny, but also quite sad if you think about it.

Do you know of anyone who lives in the past? I'm talking more than hairstyles and clothes. I'm talking about a person's spirit not being able to experience life in the present because they're stuck in some other season of their life.

Personally, I didn't think I had a problem with this until I realized that in many ways I have lived in the past spiritually. Let me explain: In college, my relationship with God was amazing. I had free time in between classes, so I read the Bible constantly. I went to a Lifegroup or a Bible Study, a prayer meeting or a church service almost every day. I lived with awesome Christian women who encouraged me, kept me accountable and prayed for me continually. I felt like I knew what it meant to abide in Christ. I knew the Scriptures better than I do now (it helped that I was taking Bible classes at Baylor). I went on mission trips and saw miracle after miracle. I remember seeing a deaf man healed and countless other incredible things. For me, those were the "good old days".

I moved from Waco, lost touch with many of my close friends (at least on a day to day basis) and stopped seeing the big, demonstrative miracles I had seen before. I "church hopped" for months before finding a church I loved. Without constant accountability I just wasn't stepping out in courage. I wasn't stretching my faith. I wasn't staying consistent in my relationship with God. I started to get very comfortable in a religious lifestyle based on performance rather than my relationship with God. Don't get me wrong, I still connected with God and saw Him do amazing things over the next few years- just not to the degree I had seen in my college days. My exponential growth had slowed to a little bunny slope.

I would often look back at those days and let them feed my soul. Now, there's nothing wrong with remembering and being encouraged, but you have to understand that I was feasting almost exclusively on the past. I was eating stale, tie-dyed pancakes. Instead of experiencing God in the present, I just kept reliving old miracles.

Then one day, I woke up and realized it's been 7 years since I graduated from college. SEVEN YEARS. What was I still doing living in my early 20's? It challenged me. To be honest, I wasn't at all comfortable- but God doesn't promise He'll make us comfortable. He does, however, promise to make us more like Christ as we behold HIS GLORY. It begs the question: What will bring about change in my life- to behold the Glory Days and try to recreate them? Or to behold Christ and let Him recreate me? (2 Corinthians 5:17)

So I've refocused my attention. Instead of staring back, I want to stare into the face of Christ. Instead of looking at what has been, may I look at what can be. I will never- never- grow to maturity in my relationship with God if I always look back at the one or two events that changed my life, but don't experience His power in a fresh way from this point forward. I'll be stuck in the good old days. You'll find me out in a field one day with a video camera trying to read a tract in Spanish with a German accent (yup- that's me).

I am so thankful for God's grace. You know, when I took that stiff, green pancake from my son, I didn't say "Oh, well- just take it. I know how much you love pancakes!" NO! I took it away from him and gave him some lunch- fresh lunch. Warm lunch. Healthy lunch. All that was left to him was the memory of the pancake breakfast. That's all he needed. That's all we need, too- the memories to remind us of God's faithfulness and power. Why eat stale pancakes when we can enjoy a fresh feast of His love and power any time we want it?