Rose-Colored Past

Does your family have a group text where you share all manner of plans, discussions, debates, and funny stuff? My youngest daughter got married a few months ago, and we added her husband to the “Family” chat.

This of course means that those of us still actually living in the house needed a separate chat called “Home”.

Anyway, our family chat is mostly talk about baseball, when our next family dinner will be, sharing when/if we need help with something, and talk about the Lord. I recently shared this verse in our group text.

Ecclesiastes 7:10 “Say not thou, What is the cause that the former days were better than these? for thou dost not enquire wisely concerning this.”

I was studying for something else when I came across this verse. I don’t remember reading it before, though I know I have. I’ve done the “read through your Bible” plans in the past and certainly didn’t give up by Ecclesiastes. (Well, not every time, anyway. I made it all the way through at least once.)

But being smack-dab in the middle of election season made this Scripture hit differently. The “Make America Great Again” phrase popped into my head almost immediately.

[This is not going to be a political commentary, so keep your shorts on.]

When I was growing up, I heard the phrase “Those were the good old days…” plenty of times from my grandparents. Now, both sides of my family all the way back are from West Virginia and Kentucky. (And according to Ancestry DNA, a smidge of Bantu peoples).

I know their lives were not all roses and crumpets. (Can we please work on making that phrase go viral?) Their lives were hard. They lived through the Great Depression, they saw major wars, they had to scrimp, and save, and work hard.

They even walked uphill both ways to school with no shoes. Can you imagine that? Apparently even in winter.

Were the “good old days” really good? My childhood was wonderful, but I was a child.

I had no idea the issues other people were facing who weren’t living in small town America. I didn’t know many of the issues my own classmates were going through. Of course I look back and think things were great. For me, they were. I had good parents, a safe place to live, food on the table.

My point is that every generation has had their fair share of hard times, but the struggle becomes dulled the further removed we are from those circumstances. It’s not a general truth that things were better “before”. Sin has always been a problem.

In case you didn’t know, people have always found reasons to hate each other. Greed and corruption and lust have always reared their ugly heads throughout our society and world. There has always been an undercurrent of good vs. evil running in the background, and many times right in front of our faces.

If we’re not careful, we can forget all of that.

Instead of being enamored with the rose-colored past of our imagination, let’s determine to do the best good we can right now, right where we are. There are people God has placed around us that we are to love, show grace to, and prove the redeeming power of the Gospel in our lives to their watching eyes.

Let’s not look back with fuzzy recall like the children of Israel who, when their current situation seemed unfair or too hard, forgot they had been slaves, and longed for their days in Egypt where they supposedly had all the food they wanted and life was better.

We should not wish away our current trials, or the state of things today with a “Come quickly, Lord Jesus!” and so desire to kiss this world goodbye that we have blinders on to the needs of those around us. There are so many who need the love and grace of Jesus.

Let us love, and serve, show mercy, offer forgiveness, and look for opportunities to be ministers of reconciliation. Let’s live in a way that reflects the fact that Jesus makes all the difference!

“The secret is Christ in me, not me in a different set of circumstances.” – Elisabeth Elliot

May this truth be reflected in our lives so that the world might see Jesus high and lifted up- as hope for today and all our tomorrows!

Colossians 1:27
To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:

1 Peter 1:3-5
(3) Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, (4) To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you,(5) Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

Psalm 28:6-7
(6) Blessed be the LORD, because he hath heard the voice of my supplications. (7) The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in him, and I am helped: therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth; and with my song will I praise him.