Hi! Pause, look back!
Look back? Again?
“Easy,” Patience prods,
“The hasty miss the most.”
Then I learned again
Patience profits
When married to Grace.

The first time my heart prodded me about what is my regret from 2016, little did I know I was being set up for one of the greatest lessons of my life. As a matter of principle, I don’t harbor regrets. Not necessarily because I am perfect: I am what I am by God’s grace. I believe every experience is essential for the next step and every mistake a learning point that teaches me to know and to do better – this is my basis for a life of no regrets.

When that question knocked the first time, my basis provided an auto response, “Nothing,” and I moved on or so I supposed until truth hit me in the face. Unpleasant history is repeated in the lives of those who don’t reckon with past. That was when it dawned that it is easier to provide a quick response and move on than to pause because when we do, we are compelled to look farther and see clearer, the very junction that throws us into a cycle of repeating subtle and often underestimated errors.

After some tragic incidents, I became conscious of this fear that stole my once rugged faith. Aware, I have been trusting the Lord as we worked on it and the progress has been encouraging until the latest revelation. Before then, whenever I’m threatened, I don’t move: I stand still and look up to God for direction. I still remember countless exploits of my fearless faith and how God honored each down the years. Post the incidents, I realized whenever fear is triggered, I panic and I push a button which often turns out a wrong or rushed move but for me, it’s ok. It gets me out, fast and far from where I don’t want to be or so I like to think.

I that once would stand and reason, even fight through whatever I believed in, surrendered to a default of pushing the quickest escape button. To me, it was my best protective devise. It was also my way of address something I didn’t want to waste my energy on: I was living on reserve at the time it commenced but I also realized during this reflection that long after I recovered, I didn’t change that default.

When I eventually paused on that question, God opened my eyes as I looked back, to see this stranger I wouldn’t have recognized on my own. In looking back, life taught me that we don’t get out of the circle we don’t know, don’t see, and can’t help: knowledge births freedom but deliverance is intentional, not an accident because we have to cooperate for it to be successful. When I paused and looked back, I stared into the eyes of that ugly stranger that has trailed me for a while now and therein found victory and grace as I learn afresh, whenever fear knocks, to be still, to look up to God, and to tap into the awesome treasures Abba has surrounded my life with for truly panic is nobody’s friend. It does no one no good.

And truly if we look in faith and not in fear, be it behind, around, or ahead, we are never alone. Unlike fear provokes, God has us in advantageous stead. God has us covered. What panic does is steal the peace that coverage of grace provides and leaves us exposed to the very thing we seek to escape. Looking back, knowledge signed the dawn of my deliverance, revelation brought release and I am practicing to stand upon grace whenever I’m tempted to re-engage the discarded default. I don’t know what your own history carries but like me, if you would pause and look back, by faith and not in fear, you may find your own way out of a vicious cycle that leads to nowhere. May His grace see you through.

Glory!