Looking Back

A while back, someone sent me a list of inspirational quotes about moving forward in their life. Some of them were kind of cliched, but others were pretty good. One that I remember goes something like “you cannot safely go forward if you are constantly looking behind you.” In our spiritual life we can easily have that constant urge to look behind and see those sins that we have committed, or the failures that we have had in our lives. I remember also a quote from Thomas Edison that said “I have not failed. I have simply found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

I know that in my own life, I can look back at the thousands of times I have failed at something, whether it be something as a child, or even later in life. Many of the failures that I have done led me to some of my greatest changes in life. In my vocation story, I mention that some of my failures would be using the material things to try and make me happy. I was in the Technology industry for 12 years and would always like to get the newest and greatest gadgets. For example, I was an early purchaser of the Apple Newton, which was a very early tablet device. It did not work very well and it ended up being more of a digital calendar and then after a while ended up getting dumped into a box of extra electronics.

The failure of the things to make me happy ended up in leading me into praying more, and asking God where he wanted me to be in my life, and that extra prayer, led me to seminary. Even in seminary, I had some challenges, but I kept moving through them year after year and relied that God was continually leading me on this path to the priesthood. Yes, I often look back at my life and cringe at the mistakes I made, but I often remind myself that I cannot change the things that I have done in the past, but can only use those things as a way to remind myself to not do them again.

The devil wants us to see those things so that we “know” that we are unworthy of God. The thing is, it is Jesus himself who makes us worthy of him. This is the entire reason why we have the Sacrament of Confession, to give up those mistakes, even if we do them over and over, keep coming back. In our lives, we need to continually move toward that kingdom of Heaven that God is calling us to. We need to continue to strive toward following the two great commandments to love God above all things, and our neighbors as ourselves. Another great quote that I use is from St. Mother Theresa, and it is “If you want to change the world, go home and love your family.” The best way to love our family is to help them forward to God and his kingdom. Keep moving forward to him.

God bless,
Fr. Ken