“As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.” Psalm 103:12

“You’ll never move forward if you keep looking back.” The words pressed on my heart in such a way that I knew it had to be the Holy Spirit revealing a truth to me. 

On a warm fall day, I was part of a team helping a realtor friend deliver pumpkins to the neighborhood she covers. Her marketing technique has been very successful and extremely well-received. A team of us drove around in a rented truck, with some walking door-to-door delivering pumpkins to doorsteps, and some applying stickers and moving the 500-plus pumpkins to the edge of the truck. It was quite a system. 

I was inside the truck, applying stickers and moving pumpkins – and looking at the neighborhood as we passed houses and streets. A neighborhood that is very familiar – when I am looking forward. We jokingly noted that we couldn’t really tell where we were going because we could only see where we had been, looking out the back of the truck. 

That’s when it hit me. That while looking back on life and trying to work through things is fine if it’s needed, perhaps there is unconfessed sin, or forgiveness that needs to happen or some other thing that needs to be dealt with. But dwelling on the past and reliving old hurts – for nothing other than the sake of rehashing them is absolutely not fine. In fact, it’s really against what the Bible teaches us to do. 

When we confess our sins and truly repent, they are cast off – forgiven, forgotten and never to be thought of again. Psalm 103:12 says he has removed our transgressions as far as the east is from the west. East and west can never meet – never. That means our sins are gone. Stop dwelling on them and move forward.

I don’t know if you needed to hear this, but I obviously did! Are you looking in front of you or are you stuck looking out the back of the truck?