the eight of swords

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. Let those of us who are mature think in this way… (Phil 3.13b-15a)

I’ve been reading through the letters of Paul, and Philippians is one of those letters you can read again and again and find yourself stirred anew. These verses struck me from the page, and I’ve been trying to let them speak to me. Moving forward involves forgetting the “old me”, and moving forward is moving in a certain direction, that of “what lies ahead”: resurrection and glorification. The goal is conformity to Christ, and the prize is resurrection and glorification. Paul’s overriding focus isn’t the here-and-now but the future; his life is wrapped around pursuit of a goal, the one goal that matters, the one goal that’s worth it. 

It’s so easy for me to become so wrapped up in the past that I forget the future.

It’s so easy for me to focus on myself rather than on God.

These are my natural inclinations, after all. And they’re yours, too.

Here Paul’s saying, “Flip that shit.”

My focus needs to be on the future, and on God.

Everything else really is peripheral.

An unhealthy obsession with my past, my fears and insecurities, these chain me, keeping me from moving forward. I need to keep taking my fears to God, for he wants us to be free from all fear; and as for insecurities, God delights in showing his power through our weakness for his glory. Greater than the chains of fear and insecurities are those chains of my past: I’m constantly identifying myself according to my past rather than according to who I am in Christ. Forgetting the past involves acknowledging our sinfulness—Paul himself readily admitted he was “the chief of sinners”—and it involves, also, acknowledging grace: “That was who I was, but this is who I am now by the power and grace of God.” My focus so often falls upon my fears, my insecurities, my past, and in turn I’m chaining myself to a certain mode of existence. God wants far more from me, he wants me to get beyond all this, to grow from this, to become stronger for it. Those who spend time in the darkness tend to see better in the light.