What Does It Look Like to Live Forward?
This is part of a larger discussion, but let me open it with the idea of what it looks like to “live forward.”
As a whole, we live in a world that’s divided, and we accept that as today’s norm. That’s not God’s desire for us.
He’s told us to live together in unity, to love one another, and to lay down our lives for each other. He’s told us to remove the plank from our own eye before trying to take one out of someone else’s. We see admonitions like this throughout His Word.
God has also told us a house divided can’t stand, and history has proven it. TRUTH: We can hold differences of opinion, still love one another, and maintain healthy relationships.
Living forward can dramatically change the future our families and our nation are headed. It starts with each of us laying down the need to be right, heard, vindicated, etc., and relies on us living forward, walking in love as He has loved us.
We can’t change the past, but we can learn from it, and we can choose differently as we intentionally live forward in love and forgiveness. If we don’t, we’re going to see cycles, including civil war, continue to be repeated.
What does it look like to live forward?This question dropped into my heart a couple of weeks ago, and it’s stayed with me.
I think it’s safe to say there are things in the past that each of us would love to change if we could. While we can’t go back and relive it, making different choices than we did previously, we can intentionally choose actions and words that touch today and create a framework for what can become a different future.
Notice I said “can,” not “will.”
It’s easy to create a storyline in our minds of how things will unfold, but that’s almost guaranteed to become a work of fantasy, rather than non-fiction, because we don’t get to determine how our new choices will be received by others or how they’ll react or respond.
I’m not walking out “living forward” perfectly, and I’m figuring it out as I go. Only time will tell if it bears fruit. That said, here are some things I feel are important - a lot more could be said about each point.
- Listen - to the Holy Spirit and to the other person.
- Own your mistakes and ask the other person’s forgiveness.
- Forgive if you’ve been asked.
- Don’t take false responsibility. If others are trying to take false responsibility related to you, help them let that go.
- Live by your convictions while also walking in love.
- Let go of expectations of the other person or how you feel things should be now.
- Live out what God has shown you and be consistent in it.
Living forward begins in our families – they are the building blocks. Start there. Lay down your offenses. Fight for one another, rather than against. Live according to your convictions and respond in love.
If we keep letting the world guide us in this, the path is one that leads directly to the decimation of families and to war, and there’s a very planned agenda for each.
As dire as that sounds, look at history and repeated cycles.
We can create a different future. It starts with each of us.
How will you live forward today? What steps can you take?
Living for Him,
Andrea
Scripture References: Psalm 133:1, John 13:34-35, John 15:13, Matthew 7:3-5, Matthew 12:25, Ephesians 5:2, Colossians 3:13, Ephesians 4:32, Leviticus 19:18, James 1:19, Romans 12:18
Our Mission: Love Others Well & Empower Them to Do the Same
CROOKED & STRAIGHT PATHS
Remember the days before GPS – before the best route available was planned out for you, and you were guided by a voice telling you the path to take?
When I was a young girl on trips with my parents, I loved being the co-pilot, sitting next to my dad, following the route on the paper map, and giving him directions as we drove.
Maps and routes fascinate me – they always have. I always want to know which way takes the least time, then I compare it with the most scenic, and decide which route is best to take. I might not mind the sense of control it gives if I’m entirely honest with myself. Interestingly, I have a compass tattoo on my arm, reminding me of His leading and direction in my life.
For the last two or so years, God has highlighted Isaiah 45:2 to me: “I will go before you and make the crooked places straight…”Anything seemingly crooked in my life, I spoke to, filled with faith that “every valley shall be exalted and every mountain and hill brought low; the crooked places shall be made straight and the rough places smooth.” (Isaiah 40:2) Countless times, I’ve stood immovable on those verses, declaring it over my life and the paths before me, especially when the paths have seemed particularly rough.
Then recently, I was brought up short when I read Ecclesiastes 7:13, “Consider the work of God; for who can make straight what He has made crooked?” and it pointed me back to Ecclesiastes 1:15, “What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be numbered.”Ummmm...I thought God was in the straightening business, not making crooked?
Have you ever had a moment when what you’d firmly believed about God was brought into question, and it didn’t make sense? It was one of those moments for me.
But having experienced moments like this before, I viewed it as an opportunity for a conversation with Him.
“God, do you REALLY intentionally make paths crooked before us? You’re a good God. Why would you make something irrevocably crooked with no ability to straighten it?”
What did I hear in return?
“Who defined crooked as ‘bad'?”
I sat with that and thought it through logically. Instantly, I shot back in my memory to high school geometry – “the shortest distance between two points is a straight line.” Then, in my mind, I had a bird’s-eye view of the top of a tree-filled mountain and saw a starting and ending point. The problem was that it was impossible to travel in a straight line to get from one point to the other.
A crooked path around was required.
I began to think of the times on trips when Brian and I had chosen slower, winding paths because of the beauty we’d see and the adventure we’d find, and my perspective of crooked paths began to change.
What if God intentionally made some paths crooked for our benefit?
It’s not as easy or smooth as the straight path. It requires more of us, and may even mean letting go of certain things, including control and what seems most logical. While it may take longer, what we experience and who we become along the way are gifts from our loving Father, given on the crooked path.
This realization led me to consider the difference between paths crooked by man that God straightens, and paths crooked by God’s hand that can’t be made straight.
There’s great comfort in knowing that when I’ve messed up a path, He can fix it.
There’s great trust required in embracing my inability to straighten a path He’s made crooked.
Ecclesiastes 7:13 begins with, “consider the work of God…” When you look it up in Strong’s Concordance, “consider”1 means to see, look upon, or discern. When I look on crooked paths set before me, what do I see and discern? Can I see His greater plan? Can I trust Him in knowing He is good and loving and that what lies before me on the crooked path is an unexpected adventure that will grow me, even in its challenges, and I’ll see great beauty along the route?
So, how do we find our way on the straight or crooked path, orient ourselves, and navigate? He’s told us: “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” (Psalm 119:105) That’s our Holy Spirit GPS voice leading us.
I still believe “Every valley shall be filled and every mountain and hill brought low; the crooked places shall be made straight and the rough ways smooth.” (Luke 3:5)
I’m also now content in and excited about the crooked paths. This new understanding has given me a lot of peace when I look back on times when I questioned God’s goodness. I see His lovingkindness in having me take rough roads that were far from smooth, and I’m grateful for who I have become along the way.
What is God speaking to you about the path you’re currently on or the one set before you in a new season? If we can pray for you as you “travel,” please reach out!
Living for Him,
Andrea (& Brian)
Endnotes:
- “Consider.” e-Sword, version 2024, Rick Meyers, 2024. Ecclesiastes 7:13
Our Mission: Love Others Well & Empower Them to Do the Same
