I still remember the wreck. I was a Saturday morning when I was 12 years old that my dad and I were on our way to watch a rec league football game. Not very far from our house, the road we were traveling yielded right of way as it merged with another road. Our truck was the second vehicle in line, and my dad looked back to see if traffic was clear before moving on to merge with the other road.

My dad naturally expected that the car in front of us, which had already begun moving forward onto the other road, had cleared and that it was our time to go. The problem was that since my dad was looking back checking traffic, he didn’t see what had happened in front of us. The car in front decided not to go and suddenly stopped. About the time my dad turned back around to the front he saw the stopped car and gasped just before crashing into the rear end of the car.

I heard my dad gasp, and I turned back to the front to see what was going on. I never saw the impact. I heard the crash, I felt the windshield, I got up off of the floor of the truck with a bloody nose. Yes, this was before we were smart enough to wear seat belts. Although we didn’t go to the doctor to check it out, I think the impact with the window broke my nose. My nose left an impressive web of cracked glass on the windshield.

Ever since that day, I have loathed looking back – literally and figuratively. Even today when I park, I try to pull through so that I can pull straight out when I leave. Unfortunately, I know too many people who spend too much time figuratively looking back at the past in their lives as well. They spend so much time looking back, they miss what is going on right in front of them.

Churches, as a group, can be guilty of living in the past as well. We can spend so much time reliving the “glory days” of the past that we miss what is happening in the contemporary culture around us. Past hurts and failures can cripple us with fear, and past victories and joys can paralyze us with nostalgia. Either way, we live paralyzed by memories of the past and miss out on a new, exciting future God wants to give us.

The lesson of the Wedding Feast at Cana (John 2:1-12), when Jesus turned water into wine, is that with Jesus the BEST IS ALWAYS YET TO COME. The good ol’ days of the past can pale in comparison to the glory days Jesus wants to make of our future.

Learn from your past, but do not live in it. Celebrate your past, but do not worship it. Neither the failures nor successes of your past define you. Long for new and fresh adventures of faith as God’s Spirit works in you and through you. Like Apostle Paul, forget the things that are behind and press on for the things that lie ahead of you (Philippians 3:13-14).

Always expect God to outdo Himself.