The Windshield Is Bigger Than the Rearview Mirror: Changing Your Focus from Past to Promise

From a long career of ministry—in radio, as a church planter and as a senior pastor—Wickwire has witnessed the tragic results when people are mired in the past. He examines six "chains" that often keep people from moving ahead with a sense of hope: inordinate attachments, past successes, heartbreak, failure, trauma and bitterness. He then seeks to motivate the reader by describing the wonderful benefits of a forward-looking perspective. Although he describes the problem accurately, Wickwire doesn't supply solutions of much depth. To people who have experienced terrible trauma, he suggests that they spend time with Jesus and Scripture, likening every trauma situation to the pain of the disciples on the road to Emmaus: "The two disciples were delivered from trauma by spending time with Jesus and listening to His Word. What a simple solution!" His use of metaphor after metaphor, and frequent mixing of them, does not inspire confidence: "There are some needles only God can thread. On our life tapestries, the valley is too deep, the mountain is too high, the danger is too great or the sin is too dark for us to do the mending we need." Although Wickwire diagnoses a serious spiritual malady, his prescription is too generic. (Feb.)