Learning from History

We have much to learn from history.  For this reason each year I try to read a biography.  This year our local library had a free book giveaway and I picked up a copy of 41: A Portrait of My Father by George W Bush.   This book tells the life story of George H W Bush, the 41st president of the United States.  This book is admittedly biased - as the author is telling the story of his father whom he admires, but it was still a good read.  One of the things that was interesting is how the author wove in lessons he had learned from his father's example.  These lessons he used in order to make fewer mistakes (by his interpretation) in his own life.

Politics aside and regardless of your views on the person or work of the Bush family, what I find interesting is that we are often as people so selective in the things that we learn from history.  The example of the people of Israel are a fine example of this.  No matter how many of their past mistakes we have recorded for them, it seems that history was indeed doomed to repeat itself. 

How often is this the case with our lives as well.  We refuse to look back at examples who have gone before us, or even the example of our own lives.  When we fail to learn from our previous mistakes or the examples that God has given us, we are missing a key component to the world that God has given us.  This is not to say that we live in the past, but that we use the past as an example to allow our present to avoid mistakes that will have a catastrophic effect on our future. 

So use all of the examples available to you - your own experience, the experiences of others in the body of Christ (though this requires sharing with one another), and the experiences recorded for us in Word of God most of all!  Use these examples and learn from them.  And in so doing you will avoid making some of the same mistakes that others have who have gone before.