The Lie of Nostalgia

I never played High School Football, but it is on my mind a lot on Fridays in the Fall.  Especially certain Fridays, when the air is cool, it's about 4:30 in the afternoon, and there is a smell in the air that belongs to something, but I have no idea what it is.  In these moments, my mind runs back to October nights fifteen years ago when my sleepy little home town got real quiet in the hours before it exploded with life to cheer on their Panthers at Chambliss Field.

It was the best thing about small town Texas football, and I miss that feeling.

Of course, that is just one of a thousands things that fall under the category of "the good old days."  Those days you never really appreciated until they are gone- like the fun of High School, the freedom of College, the money you had before you spent it all on spouses and kids.

Who among us hasn't wished for a return to something, some time, that was better than 'today?'  I do it all the time.  Now, I love where things are right now, but I'd be dishonest if I said there were not some significant things I wish would "go back to the way they used to be."

Chief among those things is my desire to return to the way my spiritual life was when I was in college.

I was passionate, I was bold, I was trusting of God and my relationship with Him.  Faith came easy to me.  Except when it came to dating- never had much faith there.  Thankfully, God provided my wife, not me.  But I was the guy who never missed a daily time in prayer and scripture- and mostly it was deep and meaningful. I never struggled with consistency, and I always had time to spend with God.  I knew what I stood for, and the world was black and white.

But, things changed.  More people told me "You can't do that," than told me "All things are possible."  More of the things I believed with ease came up against walls not easily demolished or scaled.  Black and white smudged to gray more often than not.  I got married and had kids, got out of full time paid ministry, started a church in a bar, endured four years at a job I hated, and spent a lot of time begging for God's rescue that seemed to never come.

I didn't have the time I had for God, and when I did, I had/have struggles with faith that are new to me.  Struggles like "I trust you God, but I don't trust that your plan is that I will win out in this."  In college, I believed that if God gave me a plan, it would be successful.  I've since learned that sometimes God gives us plans destined to fail because He is disciplining us- Hebrews 12 has a lot to say on that.  It's fair to say I've become jaded and cynical- and not in a fun way.

So, I find myself nostalgic for the days when it was easier, when my relationship with God was simple and easy.  The lie of nostalgia is that if we could only go back to the way things were, things would be better.

It's true if we could actually go back, but we can't.  There is that old proverb- "A man cannot jump into the same river twice, for the river has changed and so has the man."  For better or worse, we are not and can never be again the person we once were.

I argue that we NEED to look at it as a "better" situation.

Sure, I had hope unbounded at 22.  At 32, hope is far less common, but it is hard fought and lacks the naivete that taints that young hope- with hindsight, of course.  Faith was easy back then, and that made life good.  But it also was from a life untested.  It's easy to have faith when you've never failed.  It is easy to have faith when there are few voices telling you "no,"  especially when those that are are quiet whispers.

A lot of that faith I was so full of back then was injected with a healthy dose of arrogance, I must admit.  My faith was as much in myself as it was in God.  I've since learned that I am a failure, and have little to be arrogant about.  I recognize now, and not with hollow recognition, that I have gotten where I am by God's work and a little by my reaction to it.

I do wish, so very much, that I could chat with God like I used to.  That reading the Bible was as easy to do as it was before.  But I recognize that my relationship with God is just that:  a relationship.  And all relationships must grow and evolve over time as long as one of the people in the relationship is a human.  Because we change even if God doesn't.  I am different, I look at things differently now.  But I still trust in that one absolute that cannot ever change:

Jesus died for my sins, and rose so that I could live.

So, if I want to spend more time in the Word or in prayer, I need to look forward- not back to what I once did.  The way I once lived for God has led me to this moment, this time.  The way I once lived for God led me to grow and mature- I should not revert back to what I once was, no matter how good it felt.  That would defeat the purpose of a continued relationship with Christ.  He wants us to grow.  And when we fall into sin, He does not want us to loop back around to the "good" before - that means we are likely to fall into the same trap again- He wants us to grow into a new "good," one that is better than the previous.  It will not be easy- that's OK.  In fact, that's great.  Struggle with your relationship with God.  Question it.  Change your stance, your politics, your general (non-core) theology, your Bible Study habits.  But never change this:

Jesus died for my sins, and rose so that I could live.

And leave the nostalgic feelings for cool, October Fridays when you get a desire to relive High School days. Just don't try to relive them- because that would just be sad.