One of the ways that God speaks to us is through other people. Just this past week I’ve read and heard the same verse with the same theme from multiple sources. None of these authors knew each other and in some cases the material was written months ago (as is the case with my daily devotional) yet God orchestrated the timing so that they would all be read by me within a few days of each other.
Clearly, God has a message He is trying to get across to me and it’s one that I am having a hard time with.
Brothers, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead ..(Philippians 3:13) HCSB
The part that keeps coming up to me is “forgetting what is behind”. It is the idea of letting go and leaving behind that which is past. More than that even, Paul tells us to “forget” those things which are behind. Forgetting means we remember them no longer and they no longer have any place in our hearts or minds. They are truly gone and forgotten.
It’s easy to say “I am moving on with my life and I will do better next time!” It is much harder to forget that mistake or that failure and to leave it behind us forgotten for good.
I think many of us (myself included) carry an invisible bag on our shoulders that we lug around and rifle through fairly often. This invisible bag only comes off of our shoulders whenever we have a big decision to make or face a fork in the road of life. We set the bag down and we rummage through its contents looking at our past mistakes and errors because that is what the bag holds. It holds our guilt, it holds our errors and we dare not let it go because if we truly forgot then we might make the same mistake twice or go back to being what we used to be.
So we have to peer in from time to time and remind ourselves of what to avoid and what kind of person we used to be. (I don’t think I have to tell you that this is an incredibly damaging practice for us and it isn’t God who prompts us to do this!)
I think Paul struggled with this and that’s why he wrote this verse in Philippians. Paul was once called Saul and was personally responsible for the death and imprisonment of many Christians. Families were destroyed and the early church was sorely persecuted by the man called Saul.
So if there was anyone who really needed to “forget those things which are behind” it would be Paul who was once called Saul. And if God could help Paul leave it all behind and forget it, then He can surely help us do the same.
Now I am really thinking hard about my invisible bag and what I’m carrying around in it. God is making me aware, slowly and mercifully, that I have not truly forgotten what lies behind me. Although He has washed me and made me clean I evidently have not left it all at His feet. So while I am not completely sure what it is yet, I have faith that God will reveal it in His time and as I continue to prayerfully seek Him.
Are you also carrying around things which God would have you to lay down and leave behind? Paul said something else that might be helpful to us here:
And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. (1 Corinthians 6:11) ESV
In 1st Corinthians Chapter 6, Paul has just gone through a long list of sins and sinful behavior which cause us to miss Heaven and eternity with God. Every one of us is guilty of at least some of those sins. But he doesn’t stop there. He follows up with verse 11 which is just about the best news that any of us could possible receive. Read it again, if you will.
To God, it doesn’t matter what you were. Your past is in the past and if you are a saved child of God then you have been washed and cleansed of all that you were before. You are new and that which is behind has no power over God’s future for you.
I am not what I was nor am I yet what I will be. But I can choose to live in the present and be joyful. I can choose to forget the past and those things that are behind. And I can choose to hope for the future that God has prepared for me. What about you?