[To him] Jesus said, “No one who sets a hand to the plow and looks to what was left behind is fit for the kingdom of God.”

Luke 9:62

For the last nearly nine years since my initial conversion to Christianity, I have always looked back with great angst. I lamented over the friendships that I lost, the places I used to be accepted, and the way things once were. As a Jewish person, being a convert to the Catholic faith has been a mixture of both joy and pain. I have left everything behind to follow Jesus.

But somehow, this scripture strikes me differently this time around. I may have “moved” on, may have been obedient in the literal sense of the word, and followed Jesus, but had I done it in my heart and in my mind? I don’t know about you all, but it has always been very difficult for me not to look back and reimmerse myself in the hurt and pain of my past.

Just recently, I wrote an article about this.

You might say, well why did you look back, why did you do that to yourself? I’ll tell you why. Because I wasn’t having any spiritual forward movement. In my walk with God, I was proverbially stuck in the mud. Much like in today’s gospel reading, my hand was on the plow but, I was looking backward. The hurt and the pain of my past were keeping me from the Kingdom of God.

Sometimes God allows us to travel backward so that we can deal with the pain of our past, this time letting him in. With some time and perspective and the supernatural working of the Holy Spirit, we can see why we are stuck, why we do not have any forward movement of the soul. I sat with that article she wrote and I cried and I hurt.

And at that moment, God asked me to love her right there. To love her because we are all broken and hurting in one way or another. I had to address that deep and gaping wound, but I didn’t have to do it alone.

Today, if you feel stuck, try sitting with Jesus’ words and see if you are looking at what was left behind. If you are, don’t ignore that. Go back with God and make peace with it. Then you will be fit to continue God’s good and holy work for His Kingdom.