You can't always go back

The truth is not always fun. That could be another blog title, but for now let me just use it as a way to describe my feelings toward the current blog title. I realize the truth in the statement, "You can't always go back", but I don't necessarily like it. I am pretty sure most people are with me here. That is why you have "reset" buttons on game consoles. Games are much less fun when you cannot go right back and fix mistakes you made, or when you have to work for hours just to get back to the place where you made the mistake. But, many times in life there is no reset button.

When I make statements like this people tend to mistake me for a pessimist. They make silly statements like, "Anything is possible!" or "You just have to keep the faith!". Granted, I do believe in a God who can do literally anything. I also believe in a God who created this world to follow a certain set of rules, and barring a minuscule set of examples He seems happy to keep things that way.

Using my example from Monday, I find that Samson made a decision that carried consequences from which he could not just "go back". I bet he wished for a reset button about the time he realized his hair was cut off and his loving wife had turned him over, again, to the Philistines. But, he didn't. He was captured, his eyes were gouged out, and he became a slave. God released him from two of those situations, and perhaps the third if you want to get into the whole "his vision was restored in heaven" argument. But, a clear lesson is that his decision carried a consequence, and you cannot just go back to the time before your eyes were gouged out.

Perhaps I am not making a great case against me being a pessimist. Let me begin that path by saying I do not believe the main point to Samson's story is that his eyes were gouged out. That is not what I remember in his story (I actually looked it up again just make sure I was remembering correctly when writing this!). What I do remember is a story of a man who absolutely despised God's call on his life, made numerous decision to mock that call, ended up losing the call, and was still restored and used by God in his death. The patience of God is incredible. The ability for God to pick Samson up from his incredibly low place and still use him is incredible.

Would that have happened if Samson was still obsessed with losing his eyes? Would Samson have been able to move forward before he completely gave up his past? I find so many people that are wasting their future trying to change their past. That is not Optimism, it is Futility. God does not expect a perfect past from us. He knows just how screwed up we have been, and He paid an incredible price to cover it and redeem us to a different future.

Just because you cannot always go back does not mean that God cannot take you where He wants you to be moving forward.