Hosea 12:6 Therefore turn thou to thy God: keep mercy and judgment, and wait on thy God continually.
You can’t take it back. You can’t take back what you said, what you did, or what you thought this past weekend. That is done. That is history. It is implacable. It will not change. But, that is not a reason for despair and that is not a reason for not moving.
God was speaking to Israel when He said, “Ephraim feedeth on wind, and followeth after the east wind.” In other words, they were eating puff balls. There was nothing to it. It was vanity, vain, empty. The reason God describes His people as feeding on wind is because they made a “covenant with the Assyrians, and oil is carried into Egypt.” Israel had sought Assyria for help instead of God, and then they disregarded their covenant with Assyria and brought gifts to Egypt to win their favor.
The Bible says that because of that God “hath a controversy with Judah, and will punish Jacob.” Who is Jacob? Is Jacob one person or a group of people? Later, God talks about Israel. Is Israel one person or a group of people? The answer is that these are both references to an individual and to the nation of God’s people. Jacob and Israel were both the names of a person. Jacob’s name was changed to Israel, and it is the name of the people that he would engender, the children of Israel.
God is basically trying to appeal to Israel’s past and to give challenge about their future. He calls His people “Ephraim” and talks about both Israel and Judah, the divided kingdoms of His people. What He is doing is looking back to the history of an individual person and bringing out lessons for the nation that came from that person, Israel or Jacob.
Now, you are not Israel. I am not Israel, but God is God. God has not changed. So, there is something that we can take from this. That is, you will choose your history today. You can’t change yesterday, but when you think about it, your most significant history is what is ahead of you. I don’t know how much time you have ahead of you, but it is the only history over which you have any power of decision right now. You can’t take back the past, but you are obligated to think about the future. So, you will choose your history today.
Look back at histories. I say “histories” plural because all of us have a number of stories that are floating around in our heads, stories of nations and stories of individual people. Maybe these stories have to do with people in your family or with people in the history of a nation. But look back at histories.
Then, decide what your history will be. You have a choice to make. You don’t have a choice about the past but about the future. Looking back at histories, you can choose what course you will take in the future. Jacob was a trickster, the deceiver. The Bible says he “took his brother by the heel in the womb, and by his strength he had power with God.” Jacob went from being a trickster and deceiver to being a prince with God, “he had power with God.” Instead of trusting Egypt and Assyria, gods, and yourself, rely upon the God who historically has proven Himself to be Who He is. You cannot take back yesterday, but you can make choices that will affect tomorrow and will be the history that will matter in the long run.