“Our Yesterdays” Introduction

     We cannot change the past.  We can, however, change how we view it.

     When remembering our yesterdays, does God and His loving, dynamic involvement in our lives first come to mind?  Probably not.  Initially, we tend to recall events, people, blessings, difficulties, and perhaps most of all, our actions, feelings and how well or poorly we perceive ourselves to have handled whatever came to us.   All of these things are real and consequential, and very much with us because our brains are programmed to recall much of what happens in our lives.

    God, conversely, works in a manner that largely remains hidden from our eyes and understanding.  To some degree, we know His motivations, purposes and ways, as revealed in Scripture.  However, the particulars are so many and so complex that we could never understand and assimilate them even if the Lord attempted to explain His working.

    “Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O LORD, Thou knowest it altogether. Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid Thine hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it” (Psalm 139:3-6).

     The great fact about our yesterdays was the same as it is today.  God surrounded our paths.  He followed us, and waited for us at every destination to which we would arrive.  His hand was upon us, and as His trusting children, He dwelt within the very center of our being.  God was the great fact about our yesterdays.  We have lived no moment that He did not determine or allow in the confidence that He could weave all things together for the good of conforming us to the image of the Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 8:28-29).  Thus, when we venture in our memories to the past, let us always go there with God, and to God.

     Few greater redemptive truths more set our hearts at peace.  When faith in the presence and working of God accompanies our memories of yesterday, the painful, paralyzing effects of difficulties begin to lose their debilitating influence in our lives.  The good times also become even more pleasant in our recall because we affirm that they were gifts from our Father to us.  We look back and “see” by faith the Heart and Hand that assures us of good, God’s good, in all things.  He is that wise, that powerful, that involved, and most of all, that loving.  Yes, our Heavenly Father was, is, and always will be the great fact of every moment of our lives, and of our eternity.  This is peace, and there is no other.

“Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee, because He trusteth in Thee.”

(Isaiah 26:3)

Tomorrow:  Sins and failures of the Past