May 4, 2026 – Stop Looking Back
Driving through mountain tunnels on the way to Verona, Italy.
Power – Genesis 19:17 – “Escape for your life! Do not look behind you or stop anywhere in the whole valley; escape to the mountains [of Moab], lest you be consumed.” This is from the story of God telling Lot to take his family and leave and not look back at the wicked city they’d been living in. Lot’s wife disobeyed the command, looked back, and turned into a pillar of salt. Joyce explains, “Jesus doesn’t want us to forget what happened to this woman, so in Luke 17:32, He spoke these three words: ‘Remember Lot’s wife!’ In other words, ‘Stop looking back. The past is finished. Look to the future ahead!’ Begin to see, think on, and talk about the future God has planned for you (see Jeremiah 29:11), and you will soon make progress in the right direction. If there is anything you need to let go of, there is no better time than now!”
Simpson – “Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world” (I. John iv. 4). Simpson also focuses on looking forward rather than backward as he reminds us that, “Satan loves to trip us over little things. The reason of this is because it is generally a greater victory for him, and shows that he can upset us by a shaving and knock us down with a straw…. Most of us get on better in our great struggles than we do in our little ones. It was over a little apple that Adam fell, but all the world was wrecked…. And too, when the devil wants to stop some great blessing in our lives, he generally throws some ugly shadow over it and makes it look distasteful to us.”
This makes me think of the many people in marriages that have been knocked over by a straw rather than getting to the other side of the ugliness and finding true joy and togetherness in their relationships. Simpson asks, “How many of us have been keeping back from truths, places and persons in which God has reappeared, the greatest blessing of our lives, and the devil has succeeded in keeping us away from them by some false or foolish prejudice!” The loss is very sad, and even more so if there is not reconcilliation; but God is bigger than the missteps we take and the mistakes we make.
Streams – “He maketh sore, and bindeth up: he woundeth and his hands make whole (Job 5:18). Cowman draws on Ruskin’s words to remind us how good can come from bad, “As we pass beneath the hills which have been shaken by the earthquake and torn by convulsion, we find that periods of perfect repose succeed those of destruction.”
Utmost – Chambers warns, “Beware of imagining that intercession means bringing our personal sympathies into the presence of God and demanding that He does what we ask…. [Perhaps we ask Him to change our spouses (or children or friends or co-workers etc) rather than asking Him what we need to change.] Am I stubborn or substituted? Petted or perfect in my relationship to God? Sulky or spiritual? Determined to have my own way or determined to be identified with Him?”
The Arena (and other images) from Verona, Italy:
