Christian Living

More Than Just 'The Good Old Days'

by Shannon Hullet
09/10/25
Free to Share
Author requests article critique

  Message Writer
  Hire Writer

Tweet

Recently, on a seventy-mile drive between Yakima and Benton City, I put on an old worship CD from 2003. The music was from an event in 2003 where I was actually present. It was a strange thing to worship in the present with songs from years past–being reminded of years past while living in the present.

God was doing crazy things in my life in 2003 and the years immediately surrounding it. Crazy things! Far too much to go into in just a few words. Simply put, my relationship with Jesus came alive between 2002 and 2005, and my whole life changed as a result. I look back on that time with awe and amazement.

But as music from the past filled my car, it was not simply a time of remembering “the good old days.” If past experiences were all I had, what would be the point?

It is good to remember the past. “Remember the wonders he has performed, his miracles, and the rulings he has given” (Psalm 105:5 NLT). Something I heard someone say during those past years of my life was that experiences were meant to propel us forward into a deeper relationship with Jesus. Remembering the past things builds my trust in Jesus and pushes me forward in my relationship with Him today.

The past is not the end of the story. God did not stop working in me in 2003. I look back in awe not simply because of what He did in 2003, but because of all the things He has done in the twenty-plus years since! He has been doing new things throughout all the years since. He took what He was doing in me in 2003 and grew and matured those things. He used them as a foundation to build new things. He branched off from them to do something different. God continued to change my heart and my life and grow my relationship with Himself in ways I could not have even imagined in those early 2000s years!

He continues to do new things–yes, sometimes even crazy things–in me now. “Look, I am about to do something new; even now it is coming. Do you not see it? Indeed, I will make a way in the wilderness, rivers in the desert.” (Isaiah 43:19 CSB)

About two years ago, the Holy Spirit spoke these words to my heart: “Remember–and walk forward.” For that moment in time, it was a specific thing that I was to remember, but the concept remains the same regardless–remember the past and walk forward.

God doesn’t consider anything to be “the good old days.” He is working every day! Every day of our past, every day of our present, and every day of the future! Our past experiences are not there to look back on with envy and wish we could remain there. They are meant to propel us forward into a greater relationship with Jesus today.

Words in the present-day song My Testimony describe how God is still bringing about greater things as long as I am alive. Another present-day song, Same God, describes how God is the same now as He was in the past.

As 2003 worship music played in my car, I remembered the things God was doing in that time in my life. I remembered His work in the years that followed. And I thought too of the things God is doing in and through me in the present. The same God who was doing crazy things in “the good old days” is the same God who is still moving now. Remember–and walk forward!