When You Can't Go Back -- MOVE FORWARD!

.
"One thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 3:13-14).

Have you ever seen those Tractor Pull competitions on ESPN? The further the tractor moves down the track, the heavier the weight becomes on the rig that is dragging behind it.

There are a lot of people whose lives are like that. Holding on to stuff in their past, or letting stuff in their past hold on to them -- the further they go, the more bogged down they become. Until, at length, they can go no further.

But we were made for eternity. This means, among a million other things, that TIME and SPACE cannot confine us, and therefore do not define us.

You are not a WHAT -- but a WHO. Whatever has happened to you in the past, whether good or bad, is not WHO you are. It is merely WHAT happened to you. Who you are is determined by how you respond to what has happened.

And herein we discover the power of a forward view. "Forgetting those things that are behind," Paul wrote, "I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."

We can follow Paul's example. It doesn't mean that we are experts, or that we have arrived and have it all together. But, while we may not be all we should be, we have still got our eye on the goal and are focusing all our energies on this one thing: to be like Jesus. It is our one aspiration.

And so we lengthen our stride and stretch forth our hands, doing our best to reach everything that God has provided for us up ahead. We keep working toward that day when we will finally be all that Christ Jesus saved us for, and wants us to be.

Join us in this ageless cause -- and together we will MOVE FORWARD!
.