It's so easy to get into the habit of looking back with regret or melancholy. Or to believe that good things can come only in the future when certain conditions are met. It has been said that youth looks ahead, age looks back, and middle age just sits there and looks worried! I must admit to doing all three of those at one time or another. But I'm learning how much more important it is to focus my attention on the fact that God is good, and is constantly at hand. To live in the present—the presence of God—means not only refusing to postpone good, but also giving up old regrets or resentments. It means wiping the slate clean, so to speak.
Who hasn't sometimes, simply wanted to start all over again, to have a brand-new beginning, with no past mistakes clouding the issues of today? This is possible for all of us—by acknowledging God as supreme in our lives. The Bible points to God's supremacy and to the timelessness of true existence: "That which hath been is now; and that which is to be hath already been; and God requireth that which is past."Eccl. 3:15.
To me, requiring "that which is past" suggests the need to forgive others, and ourselves as well. Holding on to resentment or regret by looking back only robs us of the good right at hand. Mary Baker Eddy writes: "We own no past, no future, we possess only now. ... Faith in divine Love supplies the ever-present help and now, and gives the power to 'act in the living present.'"The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 12.
