So I've been thinking a lot about the phenomenom of romanticizing the past... and I came across a strikingly appropriate song the other day, so I thought I would share.
It seems easy for us to look back on certain past times in our lives with a sense of longing. Usually those times were not perfect, and may not even have been altogether good, but it's as if the sentimental part of us clings only to the most positive of those memories- whatever security, comfort, joy, friendship, or simplicity of life we found there. And we long for a part of it. It's alluring to us.
I've also been thinking about the Israelites in the desert. Funny I realized I've blogged about them 3 different times. I guess there are so many parts of their story that strike a chord with me. As Rob Bell says in Velvet Elvis, "Their story is not just their story.... it's our story".
I wonder what it was like for them, all those years wandering in the desert with nothing but a promise. At first they were only looking forward to the future and the freedom God had promised them, a land flowing with milk and honey. Yet once the road started getting tougher, it was easy for them to look back upon where they came from, Egypt- a land where they had been held captive, with longing.
"Why is the Lord bringing us into this land... would it not be better for us to return to Egypt?" (Numbers 14:2)
Despite the fact that they were in captivity there, despite what God had promised them, the Israelities longed for Egypt.
"We remember the fish we ate in Egypt... at no cost!" (Numbers 11). It amazes me how ready they were to go back to the captivity of Egypt... because they remembered something so comfortable there that they lacked in their present circumstance- food.
But Egypt wasn't what they really longed for, was it? They longed for what they remembered of Egypt, not the reality of Egypt. Their memories clung only to what they missed in the present. The future was just a promise that required faith, and it was too difficult to put their hope in it. It was more comfortable to remember the past as something it wasn't.
I have been listening to a lot of Sara Groves lately, who quickly has become my favorite Christian artist because of the honesty and poignancy of her lyrics. It was pretty cool how one song of hers deals directly with this tendency. The chorus goes "I've been painting pictures of Egypt, leaving out what it lacked... cause the future feels so hard and I want to go back" and continues with the line "but the places that used to fit me, cannot hold the things I've learned."
It is easy for me to look back on some periods of my life, times like my Crossfire summer, internship at Wesley, an incredibly close friendship, or life-changing trip to Guatemala, and experience longing for pieces of those memories in my life now. It's always easier to long for the familiar when the future is unknown. But God takes us through seasons, and the things that used to fit us can no longer hold where we are... and who we are. And his promises for who we will be are always better than who we once were.... "And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory." (2 Cor. 3:18)
One of the people I admire the most in the bible is Caleb, because he held on to God's promises of Israel. He didn't let go. He didn't let the alluring familiarity of the past keep him from the freedom God had for him. And he led a whole nation to their new promised land because of this faith. I think of Caleb as one of the most courageous men in the bible. A history-changer.
1 comment:
Amazing writing and even better point! Perfect for me today! Love you and miss you, I'll have to listen to that song one day!
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