There have been times where I have wanted to go back to something from a previous season, which is probably why God has not so subtly been reminding me that I, that we, can’t go back, or at least we can’t go back and be satisfied.
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. The old has gone, the new is here!”
2 Corinthians 5:17 (NIV)
I am thankful for so many things about my past, about who I was, what I was able to do and experience, and who partnered with me during those seasons. On occasion I look back at them with fondness, and occasionally, when things aren’t going my way I look back at former homes, or jobs, or friends, and consider packing up and going back to those places, which is why it was like a strike to the solar plexus when I read these words from Emily P. Freeman “Once you have tasted the new, going back to the old will never satisfy”.
“Once you have tasted the new, going back to the old will never satisfy”
Emily P. Freeman, Grace for the Good Girl: Letting Go of the Try-Hard life.
The reality of what Emily was saying really hit me. I am not who I was back then, I’ve changed and so have the people and places from that season, and going back to the old won’t satisfy me, because I have changed, and the things that satisfied me then no longer do.
Just as I am not the me of those previous seasons, I am not the Christian I was in those seasons, or even the same Christian I was last week, or yesterday. God is growing me every single day, and because of that, thoughts, feelings, emotions, situations, and even people from previous season in my life, would not be the same now if I were to try to return to them. The old is gone. It no longer fits me, and I no longer fit it. The old can’t satisfy me now the way it did then.
Perhaps more important than the old being gone is that the new is here. The new is here and the old simply cannot compare. The new is full of growth and promise. The new is where we build on the things we were given in the old, it’s where we make them into something more, it’s where we develop into who we were always meant to be. The new, in Christ, is where we find true satisfaction.
What new things am I missing out on by trying to go back to the old? What are you missing out on by focussing on the old when the new is waiting here for you to experience it?
I encourage you to first consider what ‘old’ things you are clinging to, then consider the satisfaction you could gain by investing in the ‘new’ in your life.