Eight reasons why looking back is an important and positive habit to practice …

Those who are happy to proclaim themselves as “success gurus” come out of the woodwork every year about this time to shout at us that we should never look back, only forward, because we’re not going backward.

That simplistic logic misses a lot of wisdom that can be found in developing a habit of looking back. Let’s be clear — looking back doesn’t mean “living in the past” — it means creating times in our lives when we look back with purpose.

While these “gurus” will tell you never look back, an old cowboy might tell you to look in three different directions. Pastor Paul Brown explains:

“Those who write about the west tell us that whenever an old-time cowboy got on his horse and took a long trip, he would pause periodically and look in three directions. For one thing, he would look back and study his back-trail (to make sure no enemy was in pursuit). Next, he would look around at his present situation. Then, he would look ahead at the trail before him. It has occurred to me that we need to do the same thing in the journey of life …”

Many would agree that “being present” in the here and now and also looking ahead are the two directions we should concentrate on. But there are important reasons why we should actually develop a habit of looking back. Let me share just eight reasons with you:

1. Looking back can reveal unresolved issues. Let’s face it, many of us fly through life so haphazardly that there’s usually some issues we’ve left unresolved that will cause us problems in our future if left unattended. Look at how seriously Jesus took unresolved issues with others:

“So if you are presenting a sacrifice at the altar in the Temple and you suddenly remember that someone has something against you, leave your sacrifice there at the altar. Go and be reconciled to that person. Then come and offer your sacrifice to God,” Matthew 5:23-24.

Looking back often provides the clarity we need to see issues we’ve left unresolved that need tending to. When we see them, we can respond to them, making for the promise of a better future.

2. Looking back allows an opportunity for course corrections by revealing our life’s trajectory. It doesn’t take much to get off course with our lives, and sometimes it is only by looking back that we can see how the story of our lives is shaping up and more fully reveal the trajectory our life is on. If we can see we’re veering — or already have veered — off course we now have an opportunity to make a course correction and change how our story progresses.

3. Looking back provides a chance for gaining greater self-awareness and other-awareness. We move through life at such a pace that our self-awareness is actually quite low, and our other-awareness is even lower. We’ve all heard people say, “I wasn’t fully aware at the time of the impact of what I was doing,” or “I never realized at the moment how this would impact others.” By looking back, we can learn a great deal about ourselves and others, and use those insights in the present and for the future.

4. Looking back is a means of acquiring wisdom by learning from both our successes and our failures. Social media platforms are ripe with memes proclaiming that failure is a great way of learning, if not the only way. It isn’t the only way, and it often is a tragedy for many, many people. Not everyone bounces back from failure; many are decimated by it. But it is possible to learn from our failures, as well as our successes, but only if we make time to look back at them to find life lessons we can apply to the present and future.

Not only is our own personal history valuable to learn from, the history of others can help us gain wisdom as well. In fact, God specifically included in the Bible the history of the lives of other people specifically for us to learn from and benefit by:

“I don’t want you to forget, dear brothers and sisters, about our ancestors in the wilderness long ago. All of them were guided by a cloud that moved ahead of them, and all of them walked through the sea on dry ground. In the cloud and in the sea, all of them were baptized as followers of Moses. All of them ate the same spiritual food, and all of them drank the same spiritual water. For they drank from the spiritual rock that traveled with them, and that rock was Christ. Yet God was not pleased with most of them, and their bodies were scattered in the wilderness. These things happened as a warning to us, so that we would not crave evil things as they did, or worship idols as some of them did. As the Scriptures say, ‘The people celebrated with feasting and drinking, and they indulged in pagan revelry.’ And we must not engage in sexual immorality as some of them did, causing 23,000 of them to die in one day. Nor should we put Christ to the test, as some of them did and then died from snakebites. And don’t grumble as some of them did, and then were destroyed by the angel of death. These things happened to them as examples for us. They were written down to warn us who live at the end of the age,” 1 Corinthians 10:1-11.

Going further, one of the sacraments of the church — Communion — is a practice instituted by Christ Himself as a means for us to routinely look back and be reminded of what He has done for us:

“For I pass on to you what I received from the Lord himself. On the night when he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took some bread and gave thanks to God for it. Then he broke it in pieces and said, ‘This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ In the same way, he took the cup of wine after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant between God and his people — an agreement confirmed with my blood. Do this in remembrance of me as often as you drink it,'” 1 Corinthians 11:23-25.

There is wisdom to gain by developing the practice of looking back!

5. Looking back is a key means of fostering and maintaining gratitude. Looking back and seeing what God others have done for us helps us foster an attitude of gratitude, and routinely remembering (looking back) these blessings helps to keep us grateful.

6. Looking back at cherished memories are ways we maintain connections with others. We’ve just come through Thanksgiving and Christmas, two times in our lives that are often full of memories with loved ones that we cherish. It’s by looking back at such times that we maintain treasured connections with some people in our lives.

7. Looking back helps us measure where we’re at in our life’s mission. We were created to worship, glorify, and enjoy God. And God has also appointed each of His adopted children with a vital role in His kingdom, that of serving as ambassadors for Christ (see 2 Cor. 5:18-20). It’s only by regularly looking back that we can gain an honest measure of our fruitfulness in the life mission God has given us.

8. Looking back stokes our faith. Having a habit of looking back at the history of our personal relationship with God puts on display God’s faithfulness in our own lives. Little can stir up our faith like seeing just how perfectly faithful God has been to us!

Conclusion
Don’t look back? That’s bad advice!

Look back, regularly and with purpose! If you learn to look back for all the right reasons, you’ll likely become a better person for doing so. So as this year begins, look back at 2023 and apply all these reasons for looking back. Then, being present in the here and now, step into a new year being all the better for having looked back.

Scotty