Forward is the Way

When we look in Scripture, we see that the Lord consistently directs His people forward. Forward into the Promised Land. Forward over the Red Sea and the Jordan River. Forward into battle, and forward to possess the land.

“Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on.” Exodus 14:15

“You have stayed long enough at this mountain. Break camp and advance…” Deuteronomy 1:6–7

“Moses my servant is dead. Now then, you and all these people, get ready to cross the Jordan…” Joshua 1:2

The Lord is so committed to moving His people forward that there are around two hundred verses in the Bible that command or encourage moving forward, looking ahead, or advancing. That’s a reminder roughly every second day! That’s how often we need it.

Interestingly, the only time we see God inviting His people to look back is when He asks them to remember what He has done, how His Hand has guided them and brought them into a place of victory.

There are many times when the Lord instructed Israel to pause and build memorials as reminders of His faithfulness so that future generations would look at those stones, remember how He led them, and give thanks.

“These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever.” Joshua 4:7

Those stones were not there so people could dwell on their failures, but so they could remember God’s faithfulness, the battles He fought on their behalf, the miraculous journey He had taken them on, and the times He made a way in the impossible.

I like to call them faith-building monuments.

This is how they work: we pause to remember what the Lord has done, we give Him thanks, and in the giving thanks faith starts to build again. We recognize that He will continue to make a way, just as He has always done, and lead us forward by His providence into victory. He is faithful, and He does not change. What He has done before, He can do again. His arm is not too short. He is not too weak.We do not look back to get stuck gazing at something that has been.

We look back to walk forward.

A Word the Lord Spoke

Last November I was in Canada praying for a woman at a church we were ministering into, and the Lord deposited a word into me, like a flash into my spirit.

Forward is the way.

He told me to speak it over her again and again.

Forward is the way.

And He reminded me of a favorite passage in His Word:

“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.See, I am doing a new thing!Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” Isaiah 43:18–19

These have been echoing in the hallways of my heart ever since. I keep hearing them as the Lord draws my attention back to them.

Forward is the way.

It was His word in the moment for that precious woman, but it’s for me too. For all of us. A reminder that the only way is forward. Not back. Not reliving the failures of our past or overly analyzing where we went wrong and why, but forgetting the former things and looking up to see the new thing God is doing.

How God Sees the Past

God does not deal with the past the way we often do.

👉 Continue reading on Substack and receive future posts directly in your inbox.