The good old days

    
            "The memory of the righteous is a blessing, but the name of the wicked will rot." Prov. 10:7

I believe that one of man’s greatest blessings from God is our memories. Or, maybe better said, our ability to remember, as in the "good old days." Of course with the caveat that some have greater ability at this than others. I’m going to combine a couple of illustrations relating to our memories that just somehow connected in my mind and those would be -ancient Israel and muscle cars.

Sounds like an odd combination, doesn’t it? Well, many years ago I gave up trying to explain how things connect in my brain. Suffice it to say, they just do, so we’ll leave it at that. Anyway, I’m going to, as we say "give it a go" here at developing a spiritual thought from this combination of Israel and cars.

First, let’s look for a moment at a little history of old Israel. Specifically at the time when they had left Egypt and were on their way to the "Promised Land" which was so-named because God had "promised" it (Canaan) to the descendants of Abraham (Gen. 17:8 and Ex. 12:25).

You remember how God had delivered them from "bondage" in Egypt via the working of great miracles and now they were out in the wilderness. They had only been out there for a relatively short period of time before they began reminiscing about the "good old days" back in Egypt.

REALLY? Think about this a moment. They were "slaves" there. According to the Biblical account (Ex. 3:7) they had a harsh and sorrowful existence back there. This just shows us how our memory plays tricks on us, doesn’t it? We have a tendency to remember the "good" of the "old days" and overlook the "bad." It’s Israel’s remembrance of the "old days" that connects in my mind with our 2^nd illustration - cars.

Back some years ago I was "into" cars. Not just any cars, but the ones that were common during my high school days. (And yes to my kids, they had cars back then) So I obtained me a "muscle car" from that era. A nice little Chevy Nova SuperSport and I "gussied it up" as best I could and then joined up with about 2000 other owners of that era of cars in a gathering known as the "Route 66 Rendevous."
Oh, we paraded around town, ooh’d and aah’d over everyone’s vehicles and generally reminisced about the "good old days." Back when these cars were the cars of the day. Like the Israelites, we car owners were, as they say, waxing nostalgic about the past. Remembering the earlier years of our lives. See, that’s what I think the cars, or any number of other things, are representative of. Why they mean so much to us. They take us back to the younger part of our lives.

You know what "part" I’m talking about, don’t you? That "part" where we had youth and its vigor. We had lots of energy and seeming invincibility. As opposed to our latter (now) years when our "vigor and energy" have long deserted us. Where our "invincibility" has turned to aches and pains and the realization of mortality.
To me, it’s only natural that we like to go back in time, at least in our minds, to those "halcyon days of youth." To that happy, carefree time of our life. I think that among other things, the "cars" do that for some of us,

For the Israelites, it was the remembrance of the foods they had back in Egypt. They remembered the "meats and the fish." The fresh vegetables and even the "garlic." (Num. 11:5) They were now out there in the "wilderness" subsisting on "manna," the "bread from heaven" (Ex. 16:4) provided them by God. Food for which they did not have to work or slave for - just pick it up each day and there was always plenty.

But, they remembered the "food" of Egypt and wanted to go back to those "good old days." It’s here where we see how their memory "tricked them." Because they only wanted to go back to the "food stuffs." Their memory had blanked out the fact that they had to "slave" to get that "food." That they had no freedom back in Egypt.
And, like the Israelites, I think that we too trick ourselves into remembering the "good" of the "old days" and sort of conveniently forget some things of those days that are much better now. I’ll leave it to your mind to contemplate what’s better for you.

But, I have to admit that, in many ways, I believe the days of my youth were better than today. Not because of the physical deterioration that time exacts on all of us, but I think the world of that era was a lot more "purer," if that’s the right word, than the world of today.

Not that sin and decadent behavior didn’t exist back then but, it wasn’t so "in your face" and readily accepted as "normal" behavior as it is now. I think that in the "days of my youth" we lived in a safer world. I’m not talking about national security, although I’m of the opinion that today’s national scene is still more dangerous, I’m referring to my immediate world.

In those days, parents didn’t have to worry about many of the things they worry about today. Drugs and alcohol addiction even among the youth today and immorality bordering on depravity that’s condoned and justified as "alternate lifestyles." No, to me, it was a lot "safer" in many ways back then.

Well, I’ll stop reminiscing and see if I can wrap up my thoughts here. Yes, God blessed us with our memories, such as they are. But, we have to keep in mind that our focus is forward, not backward. That our "hope" lies in the future before us. Israel’s problem in the wilderness was the "looking back" at Egypt and wanting to return there. They forgot that they were headed for the "Promised Land." Their focus was on the wrong thing.

We can be guilty, so to speak, of following in their footsteps if we shift our focus from "forward" to "backward." Wanting to stay in a sinful world wherein we’re "slaves" to those sins and forgetting where our "hope," our "Promised Land" lies. A sad thing to report is that only two of all those Israelites who were freed from Egyptian bondage had enough faith, who "looked forward" enough, actually made it to the "Promised Land."


Closing thoughts: How many of us living today will possess the faith necessary to stay focused on the goal and reach our "Promised Land"? (2Pet. 3:13 & 1Jn. 2:25) Something to think about, isn’t it?
An anonymous author once penned some words about memories that I just have to pass on to you and I can personally vouch for the truthfulness of them.

"Sometimes memories sneak out of my eyes and roll down my cheeks."

Ron Covey