Have you ever left your house without your keys? You walk to the car and realize your keys are in the house. At that point, you need to go back in and get them, or you won’t get very far. Sure, you could just walk, but that tiny little resource (a key) is worth going back in your daily journey to pick up so you can apply it in the proper context (your car) and move down the road at a much greater rate.
I think maybe we’ve placed too much emphasis in this culture on moving forward, continually growing, developing, and evolving. Doubtless that is the intention of the overall arch of our lives – to grow and become more of what God intends for us. But I think backwards movement along the path isn’t necessarily negative. It’s just often painful and difficult, because when I recognize the landscape as being familiar, I take that as a cue to be disappointed, upset, guilty, or angry. But it’s often necessary for us to go back over old ground in our lives to pick up things we didn’t learn the first (or second, or third) time. It’s not a judgment against me or a failure – it’s simply where I am on the journey.
In my mission statement, I wrote that I believe you are always moving forward or moving backward, and to always move forward, I do certain things. But I’m starting to realize that maybe I should cut myself (and others) slack when I see myself moving backward. Perhaps I’m going back to pick up a key I missed the first time.
