Look Forward

March 2nd, 2010

Jon & Kristen, Winona, Xanthia and Jackson move out to live in Nashville this week.  This will be another huge change in our family. 

All the memories flood back; the school days, family holidays, early ambitions, wedding, world travel, grandchildren, and very many challenges along the way.

Parents want the best for their children, and when they are young you often wonder how they will fare in life.  You pray for them, commit them to God, and teach them all you can.  You wonder what they will do, if they will marry and have children. 

You thank God from the bottom of your heart when they choose to follow Jesus and his teaching.  You delight in their successes and share in their disappointments and struggles, even when they are grown up and have left home.  

As I write this, Jon has gone out to run with a friend.  Life, with all its possibilities and obstacles, is like a race to be run, with a goal and a prize.  If you keep looking back, you will trip up and fall, and any progress will be continually impeded.  The past with all its experiences good and bad can be a great teacher, but there is a huge danger in reminiscing, of dwelling on good times or regrets and resentments.  There are lessons for us all. 

So whoever you are reading this, God is saying: Forget what is behind, and with your sights passionately set on what is ahead, run straight towards the goal with its prize of life above with Jesus Christ. 

David Thatcher
 

Filed under: Thought of the Week