Why You Shouldn't Look Back

 

“Don’t look back.” They warned her, the angels did, as they led her by the hand away from the coming destruction. “But Lot’s wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.” (Genesis 19:26)

 Why didn’t them tell her why she shouldn’t look back?  Maybe the angels figured that she had lived long enough to learn: looking back, when it is motivated by regret, is a dangerous game to play.  I have played that game and lost every time.  I did not become a pillar of salt, but I was frozen in time.  The temptation for human beings is to look back, not to simply record what happened, but to re-live that which wasn’t meant for us, whether it is relationships, occupations, education or investments.  There is a good reason to look back: to learn lessons that will teach you ‘I should not make that mistake again.’ But, if your looking back fills you with regret, you will be unable to move toward the freedom God intends for you to enjoy. So, don’t look back, because the time you invest looking back in regret is the time you could invest looking at the present in joy.

Red Fox

If, at the breakfast table,
I had not looked up just
as the red fox, burnished
coat glinting, trotted past,
white-tipped tail carried
like a flag, I would have
missed him. I would have
missed him if I’d slept late,
sneezed, or even blinked
which makes me think how
much I’ve missed because
of chance—if chance is what
it is—the life I might have
lived if I’d turned left instead
of right, responded no instead
of yes, walked through one
door, not the other. I’m not
complaining: I wouldn’t have
it otherwise given all I would
have missed; this life, this love,
this fox outside the window,
trotting.

(Red Fox, by Sarah Rossiter, December 30, 2020, https://www.christiancentury.org/article/poetry/red-fox)