‘80s Rock, the Prophet Isaiah, and Lent

In 1983 the Scottish Rock group Big Country had a major hit with the song In a Big Country. A great tune that to me was about hope even in desperate situations. The song includes the following powerful lyrics:

So take that look out of here, it doesn't fit you.
Because it's happened doesn't mean you've been discarded.
Pull up your head off the floor, come up screaming.
Cry out for everything you ever might have wanted.
I thought that pain and truth were things that really mattered
But you can't stay here with every single hope you had is shattered.

No, you can’t stay in the same place when that place is no longer serving you or serving God. But oh how hard it is to move on even when we know we are just barely treading water. We all have become stuck at some point or another. Moving on and letting go seem like impossible tasks; harder still, they feel like tasks that are counter intuitive when the best you can do is hold on as tightly as possible.  But more often than not, releasing our grip is in fact the best possible choice.

One of the readings for this Sunday (2/19/12) was from the Book of Isaiah and it calls us to do just that, to let go of our grip.

"Do not call to mind the former things, Or ponder things of the past (43:18 NASB)

Other versions include do not dwell in the past and forget all that…

God commands the Israelites to leave the past in the past…it’s over, done, leave it behind where it belongs. God is speaking to the Babylonian exiles but also to us on this Sunday as we begin the season of Lent.

It is so easy to get caught up in the past. By some extent we are all defined by our past whether we acknowledge it or not. To say the past has little influence over our current lives is naïve, even dangerous. That lack of understanding enables us to be ensnared in harmful patterns. Each of us are where we are today because of past choices we made for ourselves or choices imposed upon us by others when we had no say in the matter (as when we were children). It is important to acknowledge the past, to reflect upon it, and discern what from the past continues to shape our present.

But there is a difference between reflecting on the past and dwelling there. When doing the latter we become victims to our own past by our own choice. When we rehash our old hurts or even our old glories, we are not standing firmly in the present. The degree to which our past influences our present, actually controls our current behavior or thinking, is equal to, and probably greater than, the degree to which we hold on to it.  Dwelling in pain keeps us in pain. We become captives to our own pain and end up living in exile from the present and all the possibilities of the future.

Certainly there are times when visiting our past is truly therapeutic.  I am a big fan of counseling and therapy and think more people would be healthier if they took the opportunity to confront their past with the help of an objective counselor. It is important to see how the past continues to shape daily decisions and/or relationships.  But looking at the past loses its therapeutic qualities when one spends more time there then here, or whenever the process leaves us as victims and not in control. If during therapy or discernment we surface only the ways in which the past caused us harm, well, that is not therapy, that’s pity. Therapy is an empowering process, one that enables us to move forward. If after looking back I am not better able to move forward then I have become a victim by my own choice.

I don’t mean to over simplify the complicated nature of trauma be it physical or emotional. There are certainly some forms of trauma so heinous that unraveling the pain takes time. But the goal should always be to move to the present as quickly as possible. 

In the book of Isaiah, God acknowledges the suffering of His people. In passage just prior to 43:18 God makes reference to the fact that the Israelites suffered slavery.  But He reminds them (and us) that all that is in the past. There is a reason to let go of the past:

It is in verse 19 God calls all of us to something new

I am about to do something new; Even now It shall come to pass, Suddenly you shall perceive it…(43:19)

If I want to move forward then I must let go of the past and only by letting go will I be ready to accept what new goodness is in store for me, indeed all of us.

God gives the captives (all of us) a hint at the greatness of things to come by saying that He
will make a road through the wilderness and rivers in the desert (V20)

Only in leaving behind what has been done can we make room in our hearts and in our lives for what is yet to come. 

So this Lent let’s make it more about the new goodness than the past sins…let us open our hearts to the greatness that God promises us and make it 40 days of wonder…