Living on Past Glory: God’s Remnant Blessings
I don’t like to quantify the love of God. That would suggest that it might be finite, which is blasphemy. But we are told to count our blessings and number our days (as a way to achieve a heart of wisdom), so to some degree numbers play a part in how God views his blessings and gifts to us. And in turn how we view gifts and blessings from him. Then again we can’t fully know his ways so this is all speculation.
To worldly or biblical standards, living on past glory is defined as when you reminisce on the past; when you were greater than you currently are. Your ‘glory days’ as some would put it. I was surprised by this definition, it made sense but I was taught a different definition, one I can’t find online. It makes me doubt its validity but it resonated with me when it was being preached, so I feel some sort of responsibility to pass it on.
Living on past glory, from how I remember it, is when God’s blessings and favour on your current life are actually residual blessings from the faith you once had. Faith, service, worship, whatever you want to call it; basically your following of God. And in your current life, you no longer follow Him or aren’t as faithful as you once were. This means that God does not cut his supply of blessings when you stop following him, there is a grace period. It also means if you stop being as persistent in your faith and things are still going well, that doesn’t mean you are alright with God.
Now I can see how some may take issue with this. As I said in the beginning it gives a sort of metric to God’s love. But there is proof in the Bible of this concept. A decent amount of God’s followers and men of God have gone off track but remained under his shadow. But this isn’t always the case. In some situations, God is swift in judgment. I guess the method He uses to decide who gets what is up to His divine nature. God is also known to favour and have mercy on who he wants, which isn’t dependent on the person's works but on His…mercy.
What is the meaning of all this? I see the concept of past glory as a gentle reminder; a wake-up call, something that when you are aware of you can’t unsee. Something that secretly tells you that He understands what you are going through and gives you time to process it.
Some unknowingly take advantage of this time and do as they please. They are allured by other gods (Money, fame, power, whatever attribute you champion in your life). This is not the end. What we need to understand is that God is a jealous one. He vies for our love. Imagine a hand constantly being stretched out for you to take hold of, this is a continuous attempt to build a relationship. When someone loves you that much, whatever you do can only go as far as vexing them; the love never goes away. Even if the blessings are on hold, the love is never cut off.
Your period of living in past glory is usually one of sadness. You feel something missing while nothing in your life has gone wrong. It feels like you’ve lost a good friend through choices of your own, a friend who did nothing wrong. You retain the value they brought to your life and begin to use it for selfish purposes. You keep going until you hit a wall and realize they were right all along.
What we pray for is that this period of ‘purposeful wandering’ isn’t long. We also pray for insight to know when His presence in our lives is waning. We ask this because a popular marker of His presence in our lives is usually blessings and prosperity. While in actuality the only thing he ultimately guarantees is His eternal peace, one beyond understanding. It’s not okay to live on past glory, but He understands. Most of us are unaware of this state of being. If or when we return during this length of past glory, we thank him for his mercy on us, not understanding why the goodness in our lives did not cease when we thought we were without His presence, not knowing we would have eventually come to an impasse. When this happens remember that his mercies endureth forever, however, his blessings may be counted.