When we can't see a way ahead, the temptation to go back is strong. By and large we're people who like action, so better to go back than stay put until the fog ahead, the traffic ahead,- whatever- clears. At least we know, back there, where we are, the parameters, the risks, the comforts.
Yet the great discovery of the faith is that Jesus is always calling on, calling us away from the past. There will be a forward movement, and periods of rest, and sometimes it may seem that 'calling us on' has a circularity about it. Revisiting the past with a new perspective.
These thoughts arise from the incident towards the end of John's gospel where Peter says 'I'm going fishing', fails to catch anything, and Jesus, preparing a meal on the lakeside, tells him and his fellow fishers, to put the net down on the other side.
By a miracle of grace, even going back to the old trade produces results. But far more interesting are the unspoken, unrecorded comments over the lakeside breakfast. They are surely all about the way ahead; 'Are you really alive?' 'What does this mean?' 'This is very scary' 'Does this mean we are continuing to be with you, going round while you teach and heal?'
You supply the missing questions about the way ahead. You can do that if you stay by the fire, in the now, eating the bread and fish Jesus gives. The questions may not arise if you go back to the old ways. In the light of what subsequently happens in the New Testament, which way lies growth? Which, to go back to Robert Frost's poem in the title of this piece 'made all the difference'?
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