1754)  I have heard people say from time to time they wished they could go back to their youth and enjoy life without responsibilities. I find this amusing because much of the anatomy of youth is to be on their own and desiring to take on this very thing.

One thing that makes being a teenager difficult is the brain’s inability to predict the consequences (good and bad) of their behavior. I call this being able to see around the corner.

If a person can stop and think, where will this action lead me? They can avoid a lot of difficulties.

Paul believed this too. In Colossians 3:2, he urges us to set our minds on things above and not on things of the earth.

This word, set, in the Greek is phroneó which means to think about or have an understanding about something. Here, it’s a thoughtful meditation on eternal things rather than the temporary.

If we, as God’s children, only concern ourselves with the here and now, we aren’t seeing around the corner, to our eternal lives and those of others.

It’s better to look ahead rather than down or back.