People often long for the "good old days," assuming they were good for everyone. In that sense, nostalgia can be a corrupting force, numbing us to the truth of things. We often dress up the past in nice Sunday clothes and forget the suffering there. Our talk of simpler times almost makes it seem like there was no struggle, no injustice or even sin. As best we can, let's be careful to not let our memories get manipulated. There was no righteousness under the lynching tree. No peace in segregated schools or concentration camps.
Notice that the message of the prophets of God don't tell us to go back to something. How could we, really? Rather, knowing what we know and having experienced what we have, we press forward. That forward motion, we pray, moves us toward greater righteousness and justice. Holiness and faithfulness.
Now, we must look back. Not to escape into our fantasies of a false past, but to remember what we have seen from God. Scripture portrays the steadfast love of God not as a mere force in and of itself. But a power against evil, anguish, oppression and pain. It testifies to the power of the living God who rescues the enslaved, feeds the hungry, lifts the lowly and unseats the proud.
Habakkuk, the prophet, knew the faithlessness and injustice of his day. He didn't close his eyes to remember some time before. Instead, he opened his mouth in prayer, offering us a sense of this forward vision.
First, he looks back. "I have heard of your renown, and I stand in awe, O Lord, of your work," he says. His remembering is not wishful thinking, but a fuel for the hope he has in God. What God has done before, the prophet then prays for God to do it again "in our own time." Not in our timing, but in our time while faith burns in our hearts.
When we pray, we aren't looking to repeat the past. We're asking God to renew within us a sense of the movement of the Spirit now. Because what God has done before, God can do again. Hope rolls forward, not backward.
Stay blessed...john | 
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