By: Pastor Jarren Rogers

“Divine disciplines prepare our minds and hearts for obedience, like all rehearsal.”

– Gregory Spencer

What if you drew a graph of your life? Just a simple line graph that spanned all the years you’ve been alive. It would spike up on the good days and dip down on the bad. Some periods fill the upper half of your graph: a new child, blessing, getting married, doing something you love. Other periods dip way down, filling up the bottom of your graph: unexpected diagnosis, bad days, loss of your job.

What if you drew a graph of your spiritual life? Would it look similar? Would the spikes up and the dips down line up? Would your spiritual life flourish in the good days and dwindle in the bad?

Some of us, if we stand back and look at the graphs of our lives, might find our current state far from the highest we’ve ever been. We aren’t as happy as we used to be. We aren’t as spiritually strong as we used to be.

I think it is so easy for us, as Christians, to focus on the “good ol’ days”. The days when God seemed most real to us. The times when God felt close. When we felt used by Him and filled with Him. All of us can probably point to a spiritual high point in our lives.

Sometimes, we look back with sadness. We think about how close God felt. I wish I could feel that again. I wish I could go back in time and experience God like I did on that mission trip. We look back in longing for better days that seem so far away and always just out of reach.

Take a look at what Ecclesiastes 7:10 says:

“Do not say, ‘Why were the old days better than these?’

For it is not wise to ask such questions.”

The writer of Ecclesiastes says that it is not wise to long for the good ol’ days. It isn’t wise to look back in longing for the relationship you used to have with God.

Why?

Because God is the same today, yesterday, and forever. He desires to be close to you just like He was on that mission trip, at that revival, at church camp, etc. If you want to feel the closeness of God, you need only ask. You need only draw near to Him and He will draw near to you.

Stop longing for the good ol’ days and do something about it. Seek God with your whole heart. Put disciplines in place that push you into God’s presence on a daily basis. Call out to Him in every moment and spend time in His Word.

It is not wise to sit back and long for the good ol’ days, because if we spur on after God, great days are on the horizon.

Parents: Put some practices in place to improve the spiritual life of your whole family.