What if your greatest achievements ARE in your past?

On any given day, you can log onto your favorite social media sites and likely find someone loudly exhorting through meme, “Your best days are yet to come!”

Who says?

Who is the person who started the idea that your “best days,” your grandest ideas, your greatest accomplishments, are always ahead of you instead of behind you? Who is it who perpetuated the idea that every day is literally supposed to be grander and more splendid than the previous day?

Whoever that person is, they haven’t spent much time examining reality.

And they might be a Tiger Woods fan.

The Masters golf tournament was recently held, and golf fans and sports media was all abuzz about the possible comeback of Tiger Woods. Woods, who has had more impact on the game of golf than any person in the sport’s history, has largely faded from the scene in any serious way over the last several years, but his making it back into potential serious contention in the Masters brought people rushing back to the game.

Could it be that Tiger really could pull off a great comeback?

Could golf once again offer the great entertainment of seeing Tiger, in his red shirt, beat the field on a Sunday afternoon for yet another great victory?

Not this time.

Tiger was easily bested at the Masters, and left far behind the superior efforts of a younger herd of rising golf stars.

What if there isn’t a grand comeback?

If you make the central focus of your life all about grand achievements of great magnitude and scope, you’ll likely be a miserable person constantly tethered to memories of the past. Those great moments that happened in your past were partly provided to mold and shape you for your future, but that never meant your future would be overflowing with nothing but the spectacular. Pastor and author, Dr. Warren Wiersbe, gives this insight:

“Do not say, ‘Why were the former days better than these?’ You do not move ahead by constantly looking in a rear view mirror. The past is a rudder to guide you, not an anchor to drag you. We must learn from the past but not live in the past.”

So how do you live well when there isn’t a comeback?

Appreciate what you have been able to experience and accomplish. Sometimes, when today isn’t at wonderful as yesterday, we can let our desire for more result in our losing our way, like a couple that had decided they could not live together anymore. They separated and started divorce proceedings.

Through their lawyers, they agreed to meet at the home to divide their stuff. As they went through the home and sought to divide up the property, they came across the shoes of their little boy. The child had died in a traffic accident and left them both broken-hearted. As they stared at his little shoes, they began to sob. The husband reached over and put his arm around his wife; she returned the embrace to him. They stood together in that house holding on to each other, as tears streamed down their faces. They each held in their hand a little shoe. The couple changed their mind about divorce and stayed together. The love of the son had broken down the wall between them.

For this couple, appreciating the time they had with their son was a reminder that their present, and their future, didn’t have to be without joy. They remembered and rekindled the love they had for one another, and were able to move into their future by building off their past.

Realize the quality of life you’re able to experience now. Just because tomorrow may not best yesterday doesn’t mean that today, and what days that follow, can’t contain a full, rich, joy-filled life. In addition to appreciating fine memories, there are still people to love, relationships to start and to deepen, and things of worth to do. See, appreciate, and fully experience what you have in front of you, and what you’re still capable of in the days to come. You’ll find that, while some things may not be as grand as certain things in your past, your life still has significant purpose and meaning now, and can be satisfying for what it offers.

Value your current contribution. Just because you may not be able to do today what you did yesterday doesn’t mean what you’re able to contribute today isn’t important — it is! The size and scope of our experiences will fluctuate, but all of our contributions to life are of value. Realize that you still have much to offer, much to experience, much to learn, much to give — perhaps in a different way and on a different scale, but you’re still an important contributor to life.

Always be mindful the best IS still ahead in a very big way. Among author M.C. Beaton’s Hammish MacBeth series of murder mysteries is one titled, “Death of Yesterday.” While the book does not deal with the death of a day in the obvious sense, the title is suggestive. Sometimes our mental and spiritual health requires the death of yesterday — and its burial. The apostle Paul wrote about forgetting those things which are behind …

“I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us,” Philippians 3:12-14.

Even if there isn’t a comeback to the height of our “glory days” on earth, there is still much of value ahead in this life, but much, much more to come at the end of it!

Conclusion. It is a wonderful thing to be able to ponder times when God has used our lives in big, spectacular ways, but don’t let those grand moments fool you into thinking the common, more ordinary life of today and tomorrow don’t hold their own quality and richness — they do, and we need to mindful and appreciative of them.

Living well isn’t about living for great moments, it’s about living well each day, regardless of the scope of content in each 24-hour period.

If your biggest accomplishments really are in your past, how are you living well today? Do you depend on something spectacular tomorrow to bring value to your life? Have you learned to appreciate the quality of life you can experience right now?

Scotty