The older I get, the more saudades I feel -- the more wistful fondness I feel -- for the past: the music, the movies, the TV shows, the good times I had back then. There are many good memories.

I rarely watch anything new; when I channel surf, most times I stop at TV Land or a similar network for reruns of Andy Griffith, Dick Van Dyke, Bob Newhart, and so on.

I'm the same way with music. More than once, when we've gone on vacation, I've announced to the kids: "Here are the rules of the road: If it wasn't recorded in the seventies, we're not listening to it!" Fortunately for them and for me, they like old music too.

I exchange emails with a couple of old high schools buddies. (I say "old" -- they're old; not me, not yet.) Inevitably, we find ourselves bringing up the days gone by. ("Remember the time Kyle took his dad's car without asking ... and we had that fender bender with the lady in the Cadillac!?")

Hearing those songs, watching those TV shows, reliving those crazy adventures, all these things fill me with saudades, with wistful nostalgia for those special times. I can get lost in my Softsational Sounds of the Seventies CD -- and I disappear for a couple of hours. When I hear Billy Don't Be A Hero, The Night Chicago Died, Seasons In The Sun -- I remember where I was, who I was with, what we were doing, what we were saying. It's amazing, the connection we have to the past, isn't it?

I don't begrudge anyone their happy memories -- I have more than my share -- but taking that journey too often can be counter-productive.

I have also have a bad habit, sometimes, of taking another journey into the past -- the part that is filled with regrets. I think of mistakes that I made, wrong things I said, wrong things I did, opportunities not taken, and I catch myself saying, "Why?" ...and "If only..." and thinking about what might have been. This journey is also counter-productive -- even more so than the other.

Missed opportunities can sideline us if we let them. The papers reported a few years ago a story about a man -- who has chosen to remain anonymous -- who missed out on winning $66 million Euro dollars. He had purchased a ticket for the Super Enalotto, Europe's biggest lottery, near his home in Milan, Italy. On the day the winning lottery ticket was revealed, the man was preoccupied with the details of his daughter's wedding. In the midst of the chaos, he neglected to redeem his ticket. By the time he realized he had purchased the winning numbers, the deadline for claiming the jackpot had passed. He had forfeited a prize never to be repeated. What was in his grasp and reserved for him, passed him by. Not surprisingly, the stress of the ordeal landed him in the hospital.

Can you imagine the overwhelming regret this man must have felt? The devastation of a missed opportunity? Though yours probably don't amount to 66 million Euros, you no doubt have had a few missed opportunities yourself. If you're not careful, reliving the regrets of yesterday can render you completely ineffective today.

In Isaiah 43, God speaks some words to his people to help them avoid living such a tragedy. He tells them -- and, by the way, he's talking to you in these verses as well -- to let go of the things of yesterday and begin focusing on what God is doing in your life today and tomorrow. Doing this involves a little bit of time travel; today we'll look at some steps you can take to pull it off. The first thing you need to do is ...

1. CHANGE YOUR ADDRESS

(v. 18) Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.

As we all know, the word dwell means to reside. Where you dwell is where you live. God is saying through Isaiah, "Don't live in the past." He's not saying "don't remember the past" -- in fact, a couple of chapters later God will say, "Remember the former things, those of long ago." (Isaiah 46:9) So, he's not saying "Don't appreciate the past." He's saying, "Don't live there."

Now, you know the difference. A fond trip down memory lane is one thing; being consumed with what your life used to be is another. Some have difficulty letting go of the past because it was good. Others have difficulty letting go of the past because it was bad. Both are equally disabling.

I'm challenging you to change your address. Change where you dwell. This means to change what you think on. You have regrets? We all do. It's time to let go of them. You sometimes feel like the best days of your life are behind you? We've all felt that way. But don't believe it. Instead, I challenge you to place your hopes on this vital spiritual truth: When you live in God, the best is always yet to come.

God spoke through Isaiah, saying, "Do not dwell on the past," because our God is not the God of yesterday. He's the God of today.

Do you remember the story of the Burning Bush? Moses was tending sheep in the desert, and he came to a mountain called Horeb, where he encountered a bush that was burning but not consumed. A voice said, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob..." He then told Moses that he was to lead the people of Israel out of the bondage of Egypt.

Moses said to God, "Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is his name?' Then what shall I tell them?" (Exodus 2:13)

God replied, "This is what you are to say to the Israelites: 'I AM has sent me to you.'" (Exodus 2:14)

I AM. It's an all-encompassing name. It's a NOW name. God was saying to Moses, "I may be the God of your ancestors, but I'm not the God of the past. I am the God of today. I AM."

God is calling us to do a little time travel. He's calling you to get out of the past and get into today. The past, as good as it may have been, cannot help you any more. And the past, as bad as it may have been, cannot hurt you any more. It's over. It's gone. Today is all that matters.

Do you remember Flip Wilson's parody of "The Church of What's Happening Now"? I realize he was making fun -- but that's a pretty good name for a church. Or, at least, it's a pretty good mission statement. We need to be this way. We need to focus on what's happening now, to focus on what God is doing today. And you need to focus on what your life is becoming, not on what it used to be. Change your address. Move out of yesterday and into today.

The second thing you need to do is ...

2. LEARN TO SQUINT WHEN YOU NEED TO SQUINT

I'm at the age where my eyes don't fully cooperate with me. It seems like everything I look at isn't the right distance from me -- it's either too close or too far. I need to have my arms lengthened and my nose shortened. But I've learned a trick. If I squint just a little bit, I can see better. I'll see a fuzzy blob across the room, and then I squint, and it turns into John Hudson. (If it remains a fuzzy blob, I know it's Sam Jeffries.)

Here's what happens when I squint: I stop, and stare, and focus, and concentrate. And then I recognize what I'm looking at. We need to learn to do this with our spiritual lives.

God said through Isaiah...

(v. 19) See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?

The key word is perceive.

I can say with certainty that God is involved in the life of every person here. He is involved in your life today. He is doing things today. This applies to everyone of you, and everyone on the planet. But here's the tragedy. Not everyone perceives it. Not everyone can see the hand of God in the details of their lives.

It's no secret that I like baseball; I've mentioned it here before. It amazes me that some consider the game slow, dull and boring. It is anything but. In fact, it's exciting to watch. Every pitch is a new battle: one player trying to out think the other. When you've got Magglio Ordóñez at the plate with a 2-2 count and runners in scoring position, you have to think hard about where you want to place the next pitch. Do you try to get him to swing at one in the dirt? Do you smoke one past him? Do you to push him away from the plate? Every pitch is a contest. There is more strategy in one inning of baseball than some businesses implement in an entire year. And yet, there are those who watch the game and see nothing but one guy trying to throw strikes and another guy trying to hit homeruns -- with long pauses in between. It's a question of perspective. All who watch the game don't perceive all that's happening.

It's the same with modern art. Some people look at a painting and see only splashes of paint, others see an expression of human longing for immortality. Those who don't understand say, "How can you see that? It looks like a kid did it with his fingers." It's a question of perspective.

The same can be said about classical music, or reggae music, or the blues, or Southern Gospel. To some, every song sounds the same. But those who understand these types of music hear the nuances and recognize the uniqueness of each piece. It's a question of perspective.

In your life, it's also a question of perspective. To some it may look like chaos, a series of random events. Those with spiritual perspective see the hand of God in what takes place from day to day. What appears on the surface to be a problem is actually an opportunity to improve your life. What appears to be a crisis is actually an opportunity for greatness. What appears to be a chance encounter with a stranger is actually an opportunity to demonstrate the love of God. Those with spiritual perception see it.

Do you know how to develop this perspective? You learn to squint. You stop. You stare. You focus. You concentrate. You examine what's going on in your life, and you look for the hand of God.

God said, (v. 19) See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?

I challenge you to develop this skill in perceiving the work of God in your life. Squint when you need to; stop and stare and focus and concentrate. Learn to see what God is doing in your life today.

Here's the third thing I want to challenge you to do.

3. START WATCHING EXTREME MAKEOVER

Well, you don't actually have to watch it. Just think about it for a few minutes.

I find something interesting about this show -- especially the ones involving people's homes. If they wanted to, the show's producers could just buy these folks a new house. But that's not what they do. Instead, they take the old place and remodel it. They take a run-down shack and turn it into a palace. Hence the name.

That's what God wants to do in your life. He said through Isaiah...

(v. 20) I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.

There are some here today who are living in the desert, whose lives have become a wasteland. You're saying, "God take me away from this. Take me to greener pastures. Give me a new city, a new house, a new job, a new mission, a new life -- because I'm tired of this wasteland."

I'm telling you this: Don't look for greener pastures. Instead, look for the oasis. God wants to create a stream of refreshment in the wasteland of your life -- and he will, if you let him.

Think of the TV show. They'll take a person who is unkempt and flabby, with missing teeth and wrinkles and bags under their eyes, with shabby clothes and shaggy hair ... and in less than 30 minutes (well, actually the process takes a few weeks, but it's still a short time) they give a remarkably average person movie-star good-looks. It's amazing how they do it.

Even more amazing is the transformation God wants to bring about in your life. He wants to take your defects and turn them into your strengths. He wants to take your failures and turn them into success. Don't look for a way of escape; look for a way of victory. Don't expect him to take you out of the desert; expect him to turn the desert into an oasis.

When you live with this expectation, the desire to live in the past becomes a thing of the past. When your life becomes about what God is doing now, you get so excited, so filled with anticipation, that the past loses its appeal.

CONCLUSION

God is challenging you to take a journey through time -- not into the past, but out of the past. He's challenging you to give up your saudades for the good old days, to stop dwelling in the past, to start focusing instead on what he's doing in your life today ... and tomorrow.

Don't let the desert heat and the apparent emptiness of the wasteland fool you. God is at work in your life. He's doing a new thing. Do you not perceive it? He's creating something new. It is springing up now.

Change your address from the past to the present. Examine your life -- squint if you need to -- and keep looking until you perceive God's hand in the details. Then expect the makeover. He's creating a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland. If you're willing to take this journey through time, you can be sure that the best is yet to come.

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