Consistently Inconsistent

Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. So the saying goes. Most everyone believes this saying, even if they do not live by it. Just think of how often you yourself have rolled your eyes at a drug addict or a thief or a tax cheat and thought Will they never learn.

Considering how many people seem to always live in the past, you would think more people would love history. We like to post Throw Back Thursday photos. We love to bring up the wrongs that others have done even as far back as their childhood. We love to talk about the good ol' days. Yet we never seem to learn from the past.

I loved history: all those wars and diseases and kingdoms and more wars. I have always found different cultures to be interesting and loved learning what made them tick. This love of history led me to get my graduate degree in Music History. This love of history has led me to purchase study bibles and commentaries so I can better understand the historical context of the scriptures.

But most people really don't seem to want to learn about or from history. They don't care what led to the flood in the days of Noah. They don't care why Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed. They don't care why the Israelites were taken into slavery and the Temple was destroyed. They just don't care about history.

People are consistently inconsistent. They will continue to live for the glory days of their past while at the same time not wanting to learn anything from their past. They will continue to talk about the way things used to be and yet have no desire to be held to the same morality of those times. The will continue to walk in darkness even though the light is right there in front of them the whole time.

Why does history matter? For the same reason that doing what your parents tell you to do matters. It is not because your parents did the right things, but because they know the consequences of doing the wrong things.

The Good Ol' Days were not really all that good. Those were some of our worst days in history. Not one, but two world wars. Racism that was sanctioned by the government. Riots all across the country. Lack of basic conveniences that we have today, such as air-conditioning, microwaves, jets, and more.

Stop looking to your past for comfort and start learning from your past. Just because it happened 2000 years ago doesn't mean it is unimportant for your life. As a matter of fact, some of the most important things you need to know happened around 2000 years ago.