I’m sitting in my “Kentucky Room” at home. Decorated with lots of UK Wildcats stuff, it’s where I watch UK games on my big screen. Some of the decorations celebrate past victories and championships. There’s a Jeff Sheppard print celebrating our 1998 NCAA title, a beautiful painting celebrating our 1996 title and an autographed basketball celebrating the 1958 title (the year I was born). Looking around the room, it’s easy for me to get lost in the past. Remembering is such fun.

What’s interesting is that earlier tonight we watched a movie titled “Midnight in Paris.” It’s the story of a nostalgic writer who dreams of living in what he considers the golden age of Paris…the 1920s. Through the magic of Hollywood, he visits that era and many of its most famous people. One night, he even visits 1890 Paris with a young lady he met in the 1920s. She considers the 1890s the golden age of Paris. Guess what? The people they meet in 1890 complain about their day and wish they could have lived during the renaissance. Suddenly the light comes on and he realizes that dreaming about living in the past is simply a vain attempt to escape living in the present…with all its challenges. As the movie ends, he returns to his own time and starts living.

We’re all tempted to live in the past. However giving in to that temptation simply means we fail to live. Instead we just dream. God gives us one life and He intends us to live it. We can only do that by living in the present and doing so in obedience to His plan for us. Celebrating the past is fun, but living in it is failure.

So I’ll keep adding UK decorations to my Kentucky Room and enjoy celebrating those memories. What I pray I never do is miss today because I’m busy living in a memory.

Pastor Steve Hogg