"But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." Phil 3:13-14 ESV
Maybe you can relate to this. The other day I was reading Scripture, and applying it to my life. The problem with me is that I have a really strong lean to applying Scripture to my life in the past. The Bible tells me how I should live as a believer which implies now and going forward, but instead I dwell on the failures of my past where I didn’t live up to what I just read. Can you relate? For example, I’d read Romans 12:18 which says, “If possible, so long as it depends on you, live peaceably with all,” and immediately I look back in my life and wince at the uncountable times I haughtily pushed the buttons of the people I’m suppose to love, like my brothers. Then I feel shame and regret for acting like that, and the Scripture becomes a negative rebuke of my past instead of a positive nudge for my future. Ever do that? Still do it? Well guess what? It’s hard to have the joy of being in Christ if we constantly look back at all of our failed attempts to live out His Word. Satan’s walk with the Lord failed, and satan wants our walk with the Lord to fail so he relentlessly accuses us of all the times we failed to live up to God’s Word.
I’m really grateful God revealed this to me because “joy in the Lord” is something I’ve witnessed, but never truly experienced, and I never really knew why. I now know that anytime I internalize God’s Word as an anchor of shame and regret, well, there’s just no joy in that, and I might as well fold up, throw in the towel, and kiss joy goodbye because the separation between joy and me is as far as the east is from the west. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come.” And Isaiah 43:18 says, “Do not call to mind the former things; pay no attention to the things of old.” That means by shifting our application of Scripture from “failed in the past” to “straining to what lies ahead,” we transform ourselves, and our joy in Christ can now grow as our minds get renewed with, guess what? Scripture! I think Paul intentionally selected the words “straining forward” because he of all people knew the strain of a failed, regrettable, shameful past that if focused on, could have weighed him from moving the Kingdom forward as he did. I mean, like lions pursue and kill zebras, he pursued and killed Christ followers until God renewed his mind. I don’t know anyone who’s dealing with that kind of PTSD.
I don’t really like overused analogies or clichés, so let me use a couple. The windshield of a car is large and the rearview mirror is small because where we’re going and our final destination is significantly more important than where we’ve been and what we’ve left behind. Because it’s not how you start; it’s how you finish. There are so many biblical accounts of those who kept looking forward after major failures in their walks with Jesus. Had they focused on the rearview mirror, they would not have been written about.
Since that moment of biblical revelation, I’ve been reading Scripture and applying it to my life. When my mind goes to the past for condemnation, I shift from reverse to drive, and strain forward using what the coaching verses above say. I don’t look in the small, dark rearview mirror anymore where satan lives; that’s behind me. Instead, I look forward through the big, clear, light filled windshield because that’s where the upward call of God in Christ Jesus is. With eyes in front, what I see ahead now is the formerly ever elusive prize of a life filled with joy in the Lord. God is so awesome!