Don’t forget where you came from!

Ingratitude. Ignorance. Shame. These are words that historian David McCullough uses to describe those that fail to appreciate history and to learn from the past. There is great value on looking to the past to determine our future. As I see historical Christianity under attack due to its “modernity” or its failure to meet the needs of people in today’s context, I finally hear a voice that says “Wait! Don’t forget where you came from.” This voice, from all places, secular history has a message that we need to heed. The Church cannot forget its past. We must see how God moved in the past to give us courage, direction, and boldness to move into the future. So, to let him put it the way he said, here are the words written by David McCullough:

“At their core, the lessons of History are lessons of appreciation. Everything we have, all our great institutions, our laws, our music, art and poetry, our freedoms, everything is because someone went before us and did the hard work, provided the creative energy, faced the storms, made the sacrifices, kept the faith.  Indifference to history isn’t just ignorance; it’s a form of ingratitude…I’m convinced that history encourages as nothing else does, a sense of proportion about life, gives us a sense of how brief is our time on earth and thus how valuable that time is.” David McCullough ( Reader’s Digest, December 2002, pg. 89)

I cannot pretend to know the author’s relationship with God but these principles, I believe, expose to us as Christians that history really is His Story. The story of how God invaded this world in human flesh in order to die that he might redeem those whom he chose. History reminds us of those men and women saints that went before us and made the ultimate sacrifice to stand up for the truth. Let us not forget where we came form and who made our lives possible. All praise to our Great God!