(Photo by Selma Komisky)

Those Were The Good Old Days

By Zelda Dominguez

Recently I was looking through some old pictures. I like to look through them, or watch home movies, and reminisce of past times and special moments caught in time. Instantly it takes you back. You can recollect immediately that point in your life. The picture captures so many things – the joy of a birth or marriage, and the sorrow of losing a loved one or breakup. Your mind can even tend to wonder.

Have you ever said, or heard someone say, those were the good old days?  We tend to look back on a time or experience when things were more carefree, or happier. Looking at the pictures in your high school yearbook makes you think about both good and not so good experiences. Often you hear of people looking on social media for their old flames, trying to rekindle a lost relationship. Why is it that people try to go after and attempt to recreate what once was?

We hear our parents talk about how life was simpler and prices were lower in their day.  We hear the college age say how they wish they were back in high school with less responsibilities. The mom says she remembers how great it was when she felt sane and slept through the night before kids. The married people may say that their single days were their glory days.  Grandma may reminisce about younger and much thinner days, while, grandpa brags about when he was a jock or ladies’ man.

Do you think human nature quickly looks back and longs for the good old days?  Why is there this yearning of an idolized past? Does it keep us from the truth of the present and the pain of reality? Is it hopelessness?  Or is it fear of the unknown future? Is your perceptive a worldview or a Biblical view?

Lot’s wife looked back in Genesis. In God’s mercy, He allowed Abraham’s nephew Lot and his family to escape, but He gave strict instruction to them not to look back. Lot’s wife, consumed perhaps, with the sin in the city she was leaving behind, looked back and was instantly turned into a pillar of salt. She took her eyes off the path of the Lord. She looked back to the world instead of forward to God’s plan for her life.

Let us look at the children of Israel. After they left Egypt, they crossed the Red Sea and started their journey in the wilderness. God was with them through it all, but their flesh was so attached to Egypt for the supplies they had in abundance, they could not see the many provisions in the present by the very hand of God. This looking back mentality caused them to grumble and complain rather than be thankful. It is a dangerous thing to live desiring for what was and making light of what is.

Forbes magazine states change is accelerating. No one on Earth had a smartphone until 2007. That first iPhone, revolutionary at the time, was primitive compared to today’s low end models. Trends are changing daily. It is predicted by the next decade multiple inventions will bring even greater change to our world.

With the world changing, we have a choice to look back or look forward. There are things we can count on – the timelessness of our God. He does not change with the trends or whims of the world. Christ’s love never changes. Jesus is eternal. The bible says He is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. God’s word is Truth and never changes. He’s coming again! There is over 300 bible prophesies of Christ’s birth and over 2,400 of Christ’s 2^nd coming.

“So Christ also having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him”

– Hebrews 9:28

“For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ”

– Philippians 3:20

“You too, be ready; for the Son of Man is coming at an hour that you do not expect”

– Luke 12:14

Let’s live our lives with a focus on eternity.