Five Pitfalls To Avoid In Life (Two)

Today, I present you with the second point in the series Five Pitfalls To Avoid In Life. Yesterday, I treated the first point, Don’t Live The Expectations of Others

2: Living In The Past.

They said therefore unto him, What sign shewest thou then, that we may see, and believe thee? what dost thou work? Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat (John 6: 30-31).

“What sign shewest thou then, that we may see, and believe thee?” Incredible! After witnessing the miracle of multiplied bread and fishes, these folks still needed signs and evidence to believe? I think they could not believe because they were still living in the past and holding on to the stories of the Patriarch Moses and the miracles God performed with him in the wilderness. They knew scriptures, they could quote scriptures— “Our Fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven.” They were not ignorant. They knew Scriptures. The problem however was that, they were living in the past and comparing the present with the past. 

What they were saying to Jesus could read as: “yes you multiplied bread…the same thing happened with Moses and our fathers in the wilderness, so this miracle you have just done is nothing special, give us another evidence and we will believe you.”— “Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat”

Truly, Moses was a great prophet; no argument about that. But his days were over and God was doing a new thing but the people could not embrace it. They lacked understanding. They still had the veil of the law of Moses on: “…when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart…” (2 Corinthians 3:15). Living in the past is dangerous. Dwelling on past success can breed complacency. Dwelling on past failures can also breed guilt and immobilise you from moving forward. The past can teach us valuable lessons — but we can’t live in the past. Move on! Don’t dwell in yesterday. “Yesterday is gone, another day has come” Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert. (Isaiah 43:18-19)