You
shall not go out with haste,…for the Lord will go before you, and the God of
Israel will be your rear guard.
Isaiah
52:12
"Forget the
former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it
springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams
in the wasteland.
Isaiah 43:18-19
Security from
Yesterday. “…God requires an account of what is past” (Ecclesiastes
3:15). At the end of the year we turn with eagerness to all that God has for
the future, and yet anxiety is apt to arise when we remember our yesterdays.
Our present enjoyment of God’s grace tends to be lessened by the memory of
yesterday’s sins and blunders. But God is the God of our yesterdays, and He
allows the memory of them to turn the past into a ministry of spiritual growth
for our future. God reminds us of the past to protect us from a very shallow
security in the present.
Security for Tomorrow.
“…the Lord will go before you….” This is a gracious revelation— that God will
send His forces out where we have failed to do so. He will keep watch so that
we will not be tripped up again by the same failures, as would undoubtedly
happen if He were not our “rear guard.” And God’s hand reaches back to the
past, settling all the claims against our conscience.
Security for Today.
“You shall not go out with haste….” As we go forth into the coming year, let it
not be in the haste of impetuous, forgetful delight, nor with the quickness of
impulsive thoughtlessness. But let us go out with the patient power of knowing
that the God of Israel will go before us. Our yesterdays hold broken and
irreversible things for us. It is true that we have lost opportunities that
will never return, but God can transform this destructive anxiety into a
constructive thoughtfulness for the future. Let the past rest, but let it rest
in the sweet embrace of Christ.
Leave the broken, irreversible past in His hands, and step out
into the invincible future with Him.
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