Forgetting on Purpose

Brothers, I don’t regard myself as yet having taken hold, but one thing I do. Forgetting the things which are behind, and stretching forward to the things which are before, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:13-14, WEB)

There is a way of remembering your failures that looks like humility but is actually a chain. You rehearse the old scenes at night, you let them define what you can expect of yourself, and you call this being realistic. It feels responsible, even honest, to keep the worst of yourself always in view. Paul, who had plenty in his own past to rehearse, and worse things than most of us carry, chose something else. He writes that he does one thing, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, pressing on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

That forgetting is not pretending the past did not happen. Paul never pretended; he named himself the chief of sinners more than once. The forgetting he means is refusing to let the past set the direction of your body. A man walking forward cannot keep his eyes fixed behind him without stumbling, and Paul had learned to turn his face toward what God was still going to do with him rather than toward what he had already done.

For a man in the long fight against lust, this is permission you may not have given yourself. You are allowed to stop carrying yesterday into today. The setback last week does not have to be the theme of this morning. It does not have to be the lens you look at your own soul through when you wake. God is out ahead of you, calling, and the call is upward and toward him rather than backward and down. The voice that keeps you facing your failures is not his voice; his is the one out in front, drawing you on.

Straining forward is Paul's word, and it admits that this takes effort, that turning your face around when it wants to look back is work. But it is the right work, and it is work toward something, not away from a ghost. You lean the whole weight of your attention on what is ahead.

Lord, I keep turning around to look at what I have done. Help me leave it with you and take the next step forward, toward the life you are still calling me into.