Like many of your vehicles, I'm sure, my newly procured (orange!) Jeep has one of those backup cameras that allows you to see immediately behind you when you are in reverse. Hindsight, literally.
Hindsight is an important spiritual vantage point. To look back over one's experience, to make note and to take stock, to pay attention to matters that were difficult to see (much less understand) in the moment of living: these are the disciplines and privileges of rearward viewing. I have a colleague who always reminds groups of pastors: It is not experience that teaches us; it is only by reflection on our experience that we learn. The subtext of his wisdom is the truth that it is quite possible — for many, quite normal — to live life without ever reflecting on our purpose, our meaning, our reason for being alive.
Some would say, often quite proudly: "Don't ever look back! Keep moving forward." There is some truth to that mantra. We can easily become ensnarled in our regrets, trapped by the power of unchangeable events, or held captive by our nostalgia. We ought not live in the past, true, but neither can the past be avoided if we are to welcome a better future. Looking back with open and honest eyes equips up to move forward. The great Presbyterian missionary Harold Kurtz used to say, "Don't be afraid to make mistakes in living your life for Jesus. Just make new ones."
For followers of Jesus, hindsight is the fertile soil of testimony. When we look back and reflect, paying attention to our lives, we are put in a position to imagine more clearly what the living God has been up to in our lives and in the life of the world. A wise person once said to me, "Providence is mostly a doctrine of hindsight." We are usually better able to discern what God is up to when we pay attention to the backup camera of our lives. Perhaps the best predictor of God's better future for us are the currents of blessing, healing, and illumination in our past. It is why we look back so often to Jesus' morning resurrection. The early church seems to be saying on most of the pages of our New Testaments: "God pulled off this amazing feat on that original Sunday morning. So pay attention. God is likely getting ready to do the same in your life."
What is your hindsight testimony these days? Where have seen God at work in your life? What story are you telling about where Providence has taken you thus far? Are you afriad to turn on the backup camera in your life? Or can you imagine where God might be leading you next, based on where God has led you in the past?
