It was a startling news story. A man was perched on the edge of the roof of a forty-story building in New York City. He was poised, ready to jump. He was in his mid-forties and had behind him a successful career in business. A few months earlier, his business had fallen on troubled times. He had been embezzling funds entrusted to his care.
A passing priest was called to the scene. The priest managed to crawl within a few feet of the desperate man but was unable to reach him. The only alternative left to the priest was to talk with the man and try to persuade him to surrender. The newscaster reporting the story asked an interesting question: “What do you say to a person who has decided that the past makes the future impossible and believes that suicide is the only way out?”
Few of us will ever confront the circumstances faced by the priest, but all of us, at times, talk with people who live on the edge of desperation. Sometimes we feel that way about our own lives. The events of the past are such that we believe there is no hope for tomorrow. How do you deal with such feelings? How do we live with a past that seems impossible? There are at least three things we could well remember.
First, the past for all of us is a mixture of good and bad. More than twenty centuries ago there lived a man we call a saint. Paul’s name is synonymous with everything good and decent. The impact St. Paul had on the world is for the lasting benefit of all humankind. We forget that his early life was far from the life of a saint. He participated in at least one murder and was likely involved in the execution of other innocent people. The life of St. Paul is a constant reminder that few, if any, of us have a perfect past. All of us leave behind a trail mixed with good and bad. It’s a rare person indeed who can look back and be proud of everything.
Who bears in mind misfortunes gone,
Will live in fear each hour,
The joyous person whose heart’s right
Gives no such shadows power.
He bears in mind no haunting past
To vex his life on Sunday
He has no graves within his mind
To visit every Saturday.
Second, preoccupation with the past is useless except as it is used to guide us in the present and the future. George Santayana is credited with saying that those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it. There is nothing unhealthy about looking back as long as our purpose is to learn from it. But living with the past can destroy us if we spend our time simply lamenting our mistakes and dwelling on our failures.
The reason is obvious. The past is unalterable. The past reminds us that the “moving finger” writes and moves on, and neither worry nor fear can erase its lines. The record stands as it is written. Squandering time lamenting mistakes is a foolish way to live. It robs life of its potential and wastes precious opportunities.
The question is not how can we change the past but rather how can we profit from it. We learn not only from the good but also from the bad. The brutal experimentation during the early years of modern medicine was terrible, but out of those horrible days many lifesaving techniques were discovered. The way to handle the past is to learn from it and then ask what can be done under the circumstances as they now exist.
Third, it is possible to redeem the past by living responsibly in the present. There is a timeless proverb that everyone should remember: “God never allows one door to close on us without opening another.” The point of that proverb is that life is so arranged that no circumstance is completely impossible and we are never boxed into a totally closed door. There is an open door somewhere, and we can find it if we have the will to look for it. St. Paul outlived his past. There are always open doors if we have the will to look for them.
In the days that lie ahead, if you find someone living in desperation over a troubled past, or if you feel that way yourself, try recalling these things: not one of us can look at the yesterdays of life completely unashamed, but what is done is done and nothing can change that. Above everything, however, is this clear fact of history. Life is so arranged that the most hopeless problem has its opportunity. But there is more for the future: “Look away from yourselves to Jesus. The merits of the blood of a crucified and risen Savior still can cleanse from the least and greatest sin. In trusting faith commit the keeping of your souls to God as unto a faithful Creator. Be not in continual fear and apprehension that God will leave you. He never will unless you depart from Him. Christ will come in and dwell with you if you will open the door of your heart to Him.”1 The mantle of God’s mercy is available to hide away so much that is unlovely. “Who is a God like unto Thee, that pardoneth iniquity . . . because He delighteth in mercy. . . . He will have compassion upon us; He will subdue our iniquities; and Thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea” (Mic 7:18, 19, KJV).
1 Ellen G. White, Testimonies for the Church (Mountain View, CA: Pacific Press, 1872), 3:543.
Rex D. Edwards, DMin, is a former associate vice president and director for religious studies at Griggs University in Silver Spring, Maryland, United States.
