Forgetting What's Behind

Transcript

Hello, my friend… so glad you're with me today. This is By God's Call — day 4, Forgetting What's Behind.

One thing I do. Just one.

Paul writes those words from inside a prison. Not a retreat. Not a quiet morning with coffee and clarity. From chains. And still — from that place — he narrows his entire life, all its years and wounds and wins, down to a single thing. 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. Philippians 3, verses 13 and 14.

Let me ask you something gently — because I mean it with care.

What are you dragging into this year that was never meant to come with you?

Because Paul says something that should stop us. Forgetting what lies behind — that's not just forgetting your failures. Not just the moments you're ashamed of, the words you can't take back, the choices that still feel heavy. It's also forgetting your victories. The year everything worked. The season you felt like you were finally arriving. Because the past that flatters you is just as dangerous as the past that shames you. Neither one has the power to carry you forward. Neither one is your prize.

Then Paul shifts the image. He reaches for the language of the track — a runner in the final stretch, whole body lunging toward the finish line. Straining forward. That's not the language of rest. That's the language of deliberate, chosen effort. God's grace does not make you passive. It makes you reach. It pulls something out of you.

And then comes the word that may be the most important of all: I press on. Not "I have arrived." Not "I finally figured it out." I press on — steady, repeated, unglamorous. Because so much of the life of faith is not made of dramatic moments. It's made of days when you simply don't stop. When you get up — whether you feel like it or not, whether the sky feels open or closed — and you take one more step. That is faith. That is what pressing on looks like.

And the prize? The prize is not a better version of you. It is not productivity or success or self-improvement — though those things may come as gifts along the way. The prize is the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. It is Him. The voice that calls you by name, that knows you all the way through, that does not condemn you. Run toward Him — not just toward goals.

So today, before breakfast, do one thing. Name out loud — or write it down — one regret from last year. Just one. Pray it into God's hands, once, with honesty. And then — and this is where the courage comes in — refuse to rehearse it for the rest of the day. Not because it wasn't real. But because God already heard. And He is faithful.

Stay close to God. Pray — then act. I'll see you tomorrow, my friend.