TGIF
“This is the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.”
(Psalms 118:24 ESV)
No, Lord, we’d rather not…we want the old days back.
Britain voted to leave the European Union last night after 46 years in the Common Market.
Conservatives want to “take America back” to some time in the past.
Me…I have dreams.
Dreams that I’m back home with the people I knew in a place that I knew when I thought I was safe and happy.
Unfortunately, I also wake up.
When I wake up I remember that the place has changed, and like myself, so have those people.
Some of them are no longer with us at all.
The rest are not who they were and there are good reasons why they haven’t been part of my life for decades.
You can go home, but you can never go back…and sometimes, when you go home you find you wouldn’t want to live there now.
Recently, my speech has been too often about the “good old days” and and telling Trey about what once was.
These are mainly my fanciful reconstructions of a time that had it’s own problems.
It’s also cheating him like we’re all cheating each other now.
These will be his “good old days”.
It’s not my job to trash them compared to my day, but to make each day as good as it can be.
It’s my job to pave my part of his road to the future with joy and hope, not despair over a past he wasn’t a part of.
It’s my job to teach him that the same God that blessed my life is still on the throne blessing today and will bless tomorrow as as well.
It’s my job to live with him today, informed by the past, but not chained to it.
It’s my job to teach him how to press on, not look back.
This is the day the Lord has made…I will rejoice and be glad in it…or shut the hell up.
Make your own application…
But I do long to go back to the days before the designated hitter. 😉
Ecclesiastes 7:10 has been one of my life verses.
Depending on who I’m debating with on the internet another passage is Job 12:2-3
Ha! Amen. Right on! We are alive….thus, a good, very good day! Love you!
Didn’t Carly Simon record a song about this?
“But I do long to go back to the days before the designated hitter.”
How about before Free Agency 🙂 …ruined “Teams” and baseball.
Michael, I thank you for a very encouraging post.
My wife and I both have pasts that we have had to leave behind. And sometimes they have been difficult to overcome . Also been difficult to answer our childrens’ questions about past family, deciding what events and facts are appropriate for them to know at their current ages and what needs to wait.
We are continuously thankful for God’s faithfulness – without it, we would likely be perpetuating the cycles we were taught. And thankful that we can build for them a better “good ole days” than we had.
Sorry if my application diverts from yours, but your post spoke to me.
Going home is not always a good thing – and I wouldn’t want to live there anymore. And I thank God for giving my children something better.
I’m reminded of the Ray Bradbury story “Mars Is Heaven”.
With gay marriage, Obamacare, the spectre of either President Jezebel or the Orange Strip Club Owner, personal affliction and the potential Brexit fallout, these are the times that people write history books about…
All times are historical in their own way. Right now I’m sitting under a freeway overpass where the town has built a small skateboard park. T is skating and I’m studying without a thought toward all the stuff that troubles us so.
Without Obamacare I wouldn’t be here at all, there are no gay weddings in the vicinity at this time and I don’t live in Britain.
I live here, in this moment, surrounded by trees and water and murals painted on highway pillars.
It’s a good place to be afflicted and it is what I’ve been given today .
I receive it as the gift that it is.
Owen… great word…thank you.
My wife and I have been having a similar conversation. Not a week goes by that some well meaning person sees us with our daughter and tells us to enjoy these days… they’re the best of our lives. I don’t know if they realize that they are also saying that everything after this is kind of going to suck in comparison.
I will do my best to enjoy today because there are many things about it to enjoy, but I’m also looking forward to a ton of adventures ahead of me.
Hail Britannia!
“I live here, in this moment, surrounded by trees and water and murals painted on highway pillars.”
Perhaps that is what we mean by going back to the good old days — the same life situations and events good or bad – but no 24 hour news cycle or internet to tell us about it.
I could live without knowing what is happening in Europe.
Dallas, they probably are well-meaning, but I hear you. Kinda makes me sad for them when I hear that, because it almost sounds like when their kids grew up they felt like the “good times ” were over.
Something I found difficult to let go of when our first grew up was letting go of the prior good times, and being able to see and enjoy the current adventure.
MLD,
The main thing I’m worried about is that we may bitch ourselves to the point of no return.
I see more and more people I know to be intelligent and godly people threatening a civil war if they don’t get their way politically.
That is insanity.
My guess is that we’re no better or worse off than we’ve ever been…but we could be if we don’t grab hold of some reason soon.
Good ole days ….we actually had those?
July 4th is almost upon us.
A reading and reflection of the declaration of independence might be in order.
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html
Pretty soon there will not be a United Kingdom.
Scotland will vote to leave and stay with the EU. Northern Ireland will follow them out.
Next few years are going to be interesting in Europe.
“I see more and more people I know to be intelligent and godly people threatening a civil war if they don’t get their way politically.”
Michael – it’s all talk. Those same people today are not getting what they want politically and aren’t doing anything. Talk is cheap.
If I used my social media to evaluate public opinion or as a survey of America, I would assume that the country was full of satisfied old Christians … Lutherans at that. You have attracted a more hothead element to your social media.
Go to your local mall and ask the man on the street if he is ready to participate in civil war if the election doesn’t go his way? Out of a hundred, you would be lucky to find one — even in your redneck part of the world.
In fact it is no different that the Hollywood crowd that always threatens to move out of the country if so and so is elected. That’s gone on for decades at election time.
it is going to be an interesting summer … the EU breakup will affect our economy – i say it ensures Trump’s defeat and my daughter who is a lot smarter than me, says, “no, it will increase the animosity to the status quo.” … things good or bad are, IMV, most definitely changing…
i’m praying for Michael to stay healthy for selfish reasons… this is where i track the direction the Church and the churches are going in this turbulence… there is a jockeying for power among the Redeemed also – not good – but hasn’t it always been so? seems so to me – dunno
Not much to say but that exactly what Scott said in #4 is what immediately came to mind. Carly wrote the song on the eve of her first date with Cat Stevens. The songs ends with the repeating line “these are the good old days.”
Too often when we live in a past we glorify when in fact there were problems then just as there are now. For us as believers these are the good old days because these are the days God has given us.
Owen, yeah I’m sure that they are all very well intentioned. Much much better than the people who would delight in telling us that our lives were over when my wife was pregnant. Joking of course, but hear the same line over and over and it might start to sink in.
Having nieces and nephews has given me a little bit of a window into the things that I have to look forward to coming down the line. I remember getting pretty excited when they were first old enough to be able to buy them books that I legitimately remember enjoying. Over the past year, I have gotten to throw around the baseball and football with them for the first time.
Those things, and even little ones, like looking forward to my daughter being able to stay with us long enough to go hiking together without having to retrieve her from her wanderings… even though I am sure I will end up carrying her most of the time anyway.
Lots of good stuff on the horizon… new good old days just waiting to be made.
The two happiest periods in my life was when our five kids were little and right now.