You Can Never Go Back

A few friends and I had a conversation recently about how difficult it is to watch a football game now that is not in HD. We all laughed at how grainy old football clips are, even to the point of not being able to follow the football very well. The odd thing is that, at the time, none of us even noticed that the picture was grainy.

This phenomenon happens with just about every technology. Old pictures are far fuzzier than you remember when you first took them. We wonder how anyone ever played a game like "Pong" or "Space Invaders." And who doesn't notice the improvement of special effects in movies now?

I don't know of anyone who would trade HD for the old grainy TV. I hardly know anyone still using a "film" camera. We would never go back to those antiquated technologies. They simply do not capture reality as beautifully and as easily as modern equipment.

It is the same with the disciple of Jesus Christ. At each moment of our journey in Christ, we believe that we see our Lord clearly, and that we understand the beauty of His Word. Yet, with each successive day He comes into clearer focus, and His glory and worth becomes clearer. Sometimes, we will stumble across an old journal entry, or a note scrawled on a page, and we may chuckle at how we understood our Lord and His promises. We may marvel at our uncertainty, brashness, pride, or understanding. We see that, at that time, our picture of God was very grainy. We should be glad that the clarity has improved, and we should be grateful that we never have to go back.