Cliches have become accepted because, at first glance, they make a lot of sense and seem to be right on the money. I’ve thought a lot about one particular cliche.

Have you ever said, “We all have 20/20 hindsight”? If you’ve ever said that, you’re not alone! If you, indeed, always have 20/20 hindsight, you are one of the most remarkable people in the world! I must meet you…today! It seems like a wise, profound, and logical thing to say when we look back on a fiasco that should never have happened.

I believe what we’re really saying is this: “I know that I couldn’t see things clearly enough before the event to make a good judgement, but looking back at it, I now understand it perfectly.”

The term “20/20 vision” means that we have eyesight that’s excellent and nearly perfect! Is it possible that we actually possess 20/20 hindsight? Is this really how things happen in our own personal lives? I think not!

Looking at the past in order to learn a lesson from a series of events can have great value IF we are truly able to impartially analyze past circumstances, figure out what went wrong, and clearly identify our role in the failure. Okay! If all of this is true, maybe we do have 20/20 hindsight — once in a while.

Consider this illustration. The Israelites were often commanded to commemorate successes AND failures by building altars, carving records, even piling rocks on top of each other. When Achan (and his family) were stoned because of his theft of enemy spoils, the pile of rocks was a reminder of his sin to everyone who passed by not only right after it happened, but for many, many generations.

What is the danger of blindly applying this cliche and actually believing that it’s true? Accepting this phrase intimates that the passage of time, by itself, guarantees our ability to properly evaluate the past. Folks, we don’t automatically get wiser just because we get older. A dork is a dork is a dork. A herd of nerds is still a herd of nerds. The quality of our vision doesn’t necessarily approach perfection just because our perspective changes. We might react differently, but draw just as faulty a conclusion after exercising 20/20 hindsight. Only the Lord can guide our evaluation and conclusions. I recently asked a friend if he would do things differently if he could live his life again. His reply was, “Yeah, I’d do some things differently, but I’d probably end up with just about the same size stack of successes and failures – just different ones!” I have smart friends!

Remembering only our past successes can make us cocky, self-righteous and proud. Remembering only our past failures can bring despair, despondency and depression. In fact, we can get so bogged down in guilt and condemnation about the past that we utterly fail to make changes and improve the future. Paul encouraged us to forget the past in order to move forward toward our “high calling” in Christ Jesus.

If we can honestly assess the past, learn from it AND apply those lessons to the future, that’s great! However, we must not automatically assume we have 20/20 hindsight. It’s hard work to lumber thru the process of evaluation and change. Most certainly, ALL of us do not possess 20/20 hindsight ALL of the time! Only God has perfect sight…in both directions! He can see the end from the beginning! Let Him lead!

If we rely on His fore-sight before we rashly rush and blunder blindly into our next life experience, we’ll have less need to hope we have 20/20 hindsight!

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