The Good Old Days

"But Lot's wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt."-Genesis 19.26

I like to read weird news because it tends to be interesting while the real news can be pretty depressing. For instance, a story this week introduced me to a Lithuanian KGB theme park that people are lining up and paying 35 Euros each for.

You travel deep into the woods to a large underground bunker. You are interrogated, whipped, yelled at, chased, interrogated some more, threatened, etc., by people dressed as KGB agents. One young lady said, "It was scary indeed the way they treated people, and people didn't know what to do. [The KGB] would do whatever they want with people and that was frightening." At the end of the two-hour experience, people received coffee, Vodka, and canned meat.

Some reports said the park was popular because people were longing for the "good old days" when things were safe and sane. Other reports said the government opened the park to remind people of how bad it had been under communist rule. Either way, it made me think about how people can be the same in regard to the life-changes God has called them to make. In other words, sometimes Christians long for the "good old days" of their pre-Christian lives. The situation is not new, though.

For instance, Lot and his family were personally rescued by two angels from a wicked city about to be annihilated by God. The family was specifically instructed not to look back, but Lot's wife did. Moses seems to imply that she looked back in longing.

Remember the Israelites after they left Egypt? In Exodus 14.11-12, the Bible says, "They said to Moses, "Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? Didn't we say to you in Egypt, 'Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians'? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!" In other words, it is better to live as slaves than die as free men.
And then there's the brother named Demas. In two of Paul's letters he sends his greetings to the congregations to whom Paul is writing. He is working with Paul and the others spreading the gospel across the Mediterranean world. By the time of Paul's final imprisonment, however, Demas deserted Paul because Demas loved this world (2 Tim 2.10).

Finally, there are admonitions about not longing for the "good old days". Hebrews 6.4-6 is just one among many: "It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace." It is unfortunate that we understand "fall away" like slipping on ice or tripping on a curb. It is actually a carelessness or recklessness that separates you from the safety of the group. It is a constant stream of decisions that you make knowing you're going against God's will.
The main point of all this is that God is calling us onward and upward, and that life is so much better both here and there. God's life is qualitatively and quantitatively superior to life "back there." In the short term, life back there can seem better. But is it really better to live in slavery than die free?

So when you seem to struggle putting off the old and putting on the new, remember where you're going, what God has done to get you there, and what God is doing to help you get there. Maybe then where you came from won't look so good.

~Shawn