Good Ole Days

Say not, “Why were the former days better than these?”

For it is not from wisdom that you ask this. (Eccl. 7:10)

Men tend to think backwards not forwards. In my home town of Lawrenceburg, Indiana, on most fall Friday nights you can find a group of guys who graduated from high school years ago wearing their letterman jackets and talking about the good ole days when they played ball.

There is nothing wrong with reminiscing about fun times in the past, but we must not live there. When we live in the past, it always seems better than it actually was. This leads us to living a life of fantasy instead of reality. The people we lead suffer when we live a life that is stuck in the good ole days.

The past is not as great as you memory wants you to think it was. According to the Bible the only perfect days were before the fall (Genesis 1-2). We need to be men that understand the past but live in the present and are hopeful about the future. The best days are coming.

The Bible teaches that someday Jesus will return as the ultimate man and complete the establishment of His kingdom. This is one of the greatest hopes that Christians have! This day will be better than any day in the past you have experienced.

I am not advocating disrespect for tradition or the past. I think that tradition is needed and has many benefits. A mentor of mine growing up would have put it like this, “tradition is the living faith of dead men, and traditionalism is the dead faith of living men”. My fear is that we will become more in love with our traditions and memories than what Jesus has for us now.

Our world needs men here and now. We need men who know the past, who understand the benefits of tradition, who are leading, and who are being used by Jesus now.