‘What was the most important thing I’d done?’ Tricky question that. I was still pondering David’s query as I drove away from the New Quays after lunch. Somehow our conversation had meandered onto our, now redundant, Linkedin profiles and the plethora of notifications about professional, busy people viewing them. Then, David posed that question. But it didn’t seem right. I struggled to answer. ‘Important,’ in what context? What is ‘important’ anyway?
As I turned left at the primary school and accelerated towards Portaferry, ‘oops, speed limit, Doug, speed limit,’ I understood. The question was in the wrong tense. Isaiah advised ‘… do not dwell on the past…’ And we’d just spent a nostalgic hour doing so. But if I’m not to dwell on the past, which I can’t change, what then is ‘important?’
I don’t often experience inspiration as I pass Watsons of Cloughey. Well, do you? But that day, I did. The most important thing is, what I do next. I thumped the steering wheel. Of course, it is. Do I look forward to new things? Or will I breed past mistakes? And drive in endless circles? Will I apply what I’ve read? And profess to believe? Or tuck it away as head knowledge only? Perhaps I should pay serious attention to what Paul emphasised, ‘He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.’ There it is in black and white. Better to work my way down the daily ‘to-do list’ God has tailored for me. Today, tomorrow and the day after. Better that, than revering the past. And why not? If He’s designed it for me, who else can do it?
