It’s more valuable to look where you’re going than to see where you’ve been. Don’t see your future only from yesterday’s perspective. It’s too easy to quantify and qualify everything and limit the dream within you.
According to Edmund Burke, “The past should be a springboard, not a hammock.” You can never plan the future by the past. No one can walk backward into the future. Have you ever noticed how those for whom yesterday still looks big aren’t doing much today?
Your future contains more happiness than any past you can remember. “The born-again, forgiven Christian has no past,” says Tim Redmond. And Paul reminds us, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: the old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Cor. 5:17 NIV). God doesn’t consult your past to decide your future.
Misery is a yesterday person trying to get along with a tomorrow God.
Mike Murdock
Don’t let your past mistakes become memorials. They should be cremated, not embalmed. It is important to look forward—your calling and destiny are there. Paul said, “Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:13–14 NIV). You can’t face your future looking backward all day long.
I like to listen to people. I specifically pay attention to the percentage of time they spend talking about the past, present, and future. I’ve found that those who predominately talk about the past are usually going backward. Those who talk about the present are just maintaining. But those who are talking about the future are growing. Stay away from people who only talk about the past.
Some people stay so far in the past that the future is gone before they get there. The future frightens only those who prefer living in the past. Living in the past is such an appalling waste of energy. You can’t build on it.
No one has ever backed into prosperity. You can’t have a better tomorrow if you are thinking about yesterday all day today. Yesterday has passed forever and is beyond our control. What lies behind us is insignificant compared to what lies ahead.
The past is past.