Select Page

An interesting thing happened at our house this week: Tim lost both the reverse & park mode on his Jeep. Yes, we are a case of the proverbial, “Shoemaker’s children who walk around with holes in their shoes.” 🙂 But only at this moment. Danny always takes excellent care of our cars, as he does everyone’s. Seriously. But I am digressing…

Danny & Tim had to push his car out of our driveway Thursday morning in order for Danny to get it to work. Then, of course, we gave him the only advice we could, “Keep moving forward!”. Actually, he really had no choice in the matter. But here is what hit me at that moment:

                                        Moving forward is all he could do.

In Scripture, the advice to “move forward” was given several times. Let’s look at a few:

  1. When the Israelites are at the Red Sea, Egyptians approaching. The Lord says to Moses, “Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on.” (Exodus14:15). In the KJV it says, “Go forward!”. The Old Testament Lexical Aids (OTLA) defines that as ,” set out, move on, leave, travel on” (5825).
  2. When the Moabites came up against the camp of Israel, Scripture tells us “the Israelites rose up & fought them until they fled” (2 Kings 3:24). The OTLA tells us that this word is “used to signify a request to take immediate & dramatic action” (7756).
  3. God, in reprimanding His people for their disobedience, says this, But they did not listen or pay attention; instead, they followed the stubborn inclinations of their evil hearts. They went backward and not forward“  (Jeremiah 7:24). Simply put? They did not progress in the direction that God had instructed. 
  4. In a vision, Ezekiel describes the movement of four living creatures. We are told two things of their movement. “Each one went straight ahead; they did not turn as they moved” (Ezekiel 1:9). And,  Each one went straight ahead. Wherever the spirit would go, they would go, without turning as they went” (Ezekiel 1:12).

                           What has losing park & reverse taught me this week?

There are times in life, I can only move forward. There is no going back, no sitting still. I am to take action to go where God is leading. I want to be like the four living creatures moving where the Spirit would direct me, not getting distracted or making turns I should not. I do not want to be stubborn & follow my own inclinations as then I would regress rather than progress in my walk with God.

I have also learned that at times, just the way the car was in need of repair, my life will need the reprimand of God to get back on track. God loves me enough that just as He reprimanded His people of old, He will reprimand or discipline me.  

“Do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those he loves” (Hebrews 12:6 NIV). 

Today may I do the same thing that I told Danny as he took the Jeep to work:

                                                   “Keep moving forward!!!!!”

               Â