One thing social media has given us is the ability to rediscover people from our past. In other words, you no longer need to go to a reunion to find out what’s happened to an old friend.

You can discover professional and academic accomplishments. You may see spouses or realize that a friend has remained or become single. You get to see children and relatives of friends. But you may also see a person whose face you honestly don’t know.

There have been times when I have absolutely not recognized a person from their posted photos. Of course, the same might be said of me from someone who knew me years ago.

Weight gain or loss and hair loss or change combined with passing years can really affect a person’s appearance to the point where there’s no recognition. Which person at this restaurant is my old friend? Sometimes I have no idea.

This kind of freezing people the way we remember them is still a thing. I tend to freeze kids at their Kindergarten age. A few years later I see one and I sometimes think to myself, “Oh, look. It’s James' older brother. No. Wait a minute. That is James!?”

Time plays tricks on our memories confusing people as they used to be with who they have become. We mainly talk about outward appearances, not necessarily who people are on the inside. Because who but God knows what’s really going on inside?

There are different dimensions to this when it comes to faith. On one hand, through social media I discover that someone I knew who was not a Christian is now a believer—answered prayer. The flip side is one of my good Christian friends who is now describing herself as both lesbian and Buddhist. The reconnections can go in both directions.

Apart from Jesus, it’s all vanity. But we are not left to ourselves. Jesus doesn’t check our social media activity to find out how we’re doing. So why do we focus on the outside person and not enough on the inner? Do we sometimes define ourselves by the way we look to other people?

Honestly, most all of us do in one way or another, and yet, it’s God’s gaze that matters most of all. The eyes of others can lead us astray. But God’s eyes never will. Instead, they point us to where we have gone astray.

Examine me, O God, and know my mind.
Test me, and know my thoughts.
See whether I am on an evil path.
Then lead me on the everlasting path.
(Psalm 139:23-23)

We look back. We bring the past into our present day and think we understand things better if we could only do it over again. But what about the choices we face this very day? And what of the days ahead?

Our inner beings. Are they better today than they were two years ago, five years ago? Ten? Social media seems to be so much about what is happening now or what has already happened. But how might we look forward to what lies ahead? How are we to find the eternal path? I don’t think it’s by looking back.

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.(2 Corinthians 4:16-18)

Lead us on the everlasting path. It’s not where we’ve been, but where we’re going.

One Sunday, many years ago, we got home from church. Mallory, our seven-year-old neighbor at the time, asked us where we had been. We explained that we had been to church, thinking that she would understand that this is something people do on Sunday morning.

Mallory responded with a look of incomprehension and childlike pity. In her religious tradition her mother would rush out Saturday late afternoon for a quick turn at churchgoing to get it out of the way before stay-up-late Saturday nights, and then the family could stay in bed and sleep in almost til the neighbors (us) get back from their Sunday morning church.

The churchgoing choices have broadened since then. With livestream broadcasts, we can watch our own church service from the beds or couches of our homes. I wonder if Mallory rushes in and out of her church Saturday afternoon or goes Sunday morning, livestreams some other church or has chosen another path altogether away from us?

The footsteps on the everlasting path may be unremarkable in the short run. They can be simple, but they are headed somewhere truly remarkable. Last Sunday, I first recounted with five-year-olds the story of the prophet Elijah, wildly popular after the triumph against the prophets of Baal, walking with God, emulated by Elisha and then caught up in the whirlwind to heaven. From the whirlwind of Kids' Harbor, I went to the bookstall and met some people for the first time. I also spoke with Paul and Lynn and Liita and Ken. I listened to the preaching from the Gospel of Mark and considered the warning of religiosity and pharisaism and the miracles of Jesus. The loving arms of the Good Shepherd often are visible in the loving hands of his people, tearing open the rooftop or shaking your hand when you come into service, throwing cloaks down in front of a donkey on the road the Jerusalem or giving you a cup of coffee or a glass of water on Sunday morning.

If we’re sick or infirmed, livestream might be all we have. But I keep thinking about the people tearing apart the mud-dried roof to lower their friend down to Jesus for healing. This was not a remote experience done from the comfort of their own houses.

And a highway shall be there,
and it shall be called the Way of Holiness;
the unclean shall not pass over it.
It shall belong to those who walk on the way;
even if they are fools, they shall not go astray.
No lion shall be there,
nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it;
they shall not be found there,
but the redeemed shall walk there.
And the ransomed of the LORD shall return
and come to Zion with singing;
everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;
they shall obtain gladness and joy,
and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.(Isaiah 35:8-10)

It’s Back to Church Sunday tomorrow at College Church. Let’s pray together. Let’s worship together. Let’s hear from God’s Word. Let us find healing and hope and lean on the everlasting arms of the Savior. Together.