May 14, 2020 – Click here to listen
I attended a Zoom meeting of our church small group last night and we were studying Philippians 3 where the Apostle Paul told us to forget those things behind and to reach forward to those things ahead. Now I’ve read that verse hundreds of times and in all that time didn’t think of something our group leader emphasized about it and that is that we should forget the wins too. I’ve always focused on trying to put the failures that I’ve experienced, and tragedies lived through behind me and have given zero thought to ditching the great wins that I’ve experienced in life. But Paul is not saying that we should merely focus on leaving our failures and tragedies behind us, but he said that we should forget the victories as well???
Initially this sounded counter to sound logic to me. I’ve struggled through the years with moving on from some of the things I did in my misspent youth. I clawed my way out of the gutter through Christ who strengthened me, and it seems to be a positive to cherish those wins. Why should we forget positives along with the negatives?
God doesn’t want us to live in the past nor rest on our laurels. He is not done with us until He calls us home. That means we should focus on our purpose which is not to sit around feeling sorry for ourselves, nor reveling in how successful we were. He wants us to look out the front windshield and not stare at the rearview mirror.
Our group leader pointed out that former Miami Dolphins Coach Don Shula won the most games in NFL history — 328. He had a natural ability to lead and motivate others by identifying players’ talents and honing those skills to beat the competition. He had a 24-hour rule. The team had 24 hours to celebrate victory or to mourn defeat. For 24 hours players could ride the high of a win and swap stories about the greatest plays. Likewise they had 24 hours to lament a loss and be in a foul mood. After that, time was up. Everyone had to move on, to prepare for the next game, the next opponent, the next competition, the next goal.
His point was that if we dwell in a state of celebration or mourning due to success or failure, we’ll become disconnected from the knowledge, skills, and hard work necessary to accomplish our purpose. Paul is urging us not to dwell on our successes or failures and to keep pressing on towards the goal. The goal for Jesus followers is to do the work of the Lord until we draw our last breath on this earth, which by the way is how we know when our purpose for being on this planet is complete.
Things like praying ceaselessly, reading the word of God daily, witnessing, helping serve others should never diminish because we have finished a certain task. Finish the task at hand, bask in its glory, and move on to the next one. And when you get there work feverishly as though to win the race . . .
Phil. 3:13
. . . but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.