Go Backwards to Go Forward

Set up signs and mark the road;

find again the way by which you left.

Come back, people of Israel,

come home to the towns you left.

How long will you hesitate, faithless people?

I have created something new and different,

as different as a woman protecting a man.”
(Jeremiah 31:21-22 GNB)

Let’s talk about the radically new things we can witness God do when we trace our steps back. The Prophet Jeremiah says of the new and different will be “as different [to witness] as a woman protecting a man.” I want to talk a little about the historical context of this text before some people accuse God of sexism. The society in which the prophet wrote this, was a society where there were no such thing as women’s rights. Women outside the Bible and a handful of outliers in historical texts were considered voiceless property that would otherwise die without the intervention of “a man.”

When the Prophet says that tracing our steps backward will allow us to witness, in their historical context, radically different gender roles, he is in effect saying that we can witness God shape and change culture and society when we look back at where we have been. This means that upon our reflect, we can move forward in a direction where we will no longer recognize old ways but have a vision of new things to come.

Let’s reflect on where God took us in the past to see how radically He is planning to impact our future.