Where We Must Not Look by Chris White

 ^“The LORD said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him, “Now lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward; for all the land which you see, I will give it to you and to your descendants forever.”  Genesis 13:14-15

The Lord had brought Abraham and Lot into great prosperity; so much so that the two of them needed to separate because the land could no longer support both of them living in the same place at the same time.  It is an interesting exchange that goes on between them.  The elder defers to the younger, the younger gets what he wants and heads straight into moral ruin, the elder trusts in providence and ends up receiving Canaan which was his destiny in the first place.  One trusts what he sees and goes to destruction, the other trusts in God’s directing hand and receives the Promised Land.  But I also find the words of the Lord quite instructive in this setting.  Do you notice where the Lord tells Abraham to direct his sight?  He tells him to look to what is right in front of him for that will be the family inheritance forever.  How often we want to look ahead, or as we age, more often behind us to our past because somehow those were better days (at least we are certain they turned out for us alright).  But I have a certainty in my soul that the Lord desires that we all learn to look and live in the present.  The present is what He is doing now in our lives.  The past brought us here but that is finished.  The future will eventually become the present, but it is always ahead of us.  The present is a moment of learning and struggle that prepares us for what lies ahead.  Our job is to live and learn the present time in a skillful manner.  What folly there is in constantly looking so far ahead as to miss the joys of what the Lord is doing now.