Philippians 3:12-14
12Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
Forgetting what is behind! How is this possible? yet we are told we have to forget in order to go on. If you have been raised on a farm, then this will be familiar to you. My dad had two mules, Bell and John, and they were used to plow the garden. I remember when he got behind that plow, and yelled “giddy up”, away they went. Up one row and back, moving at a pretty good pace. There wasn’t time to look back to see how straight the rows were. (Although he was pretty good at keeping them straight.) If you was going to get anything done, you just kept going, and with that mule, being alert was a key factor. This illustration reminds me of how we press on each day, getting up, looking straight ahead, and being focused, We know at the end of that row, we will have done the will of our Father. Will we ever be perfect? No, but we still press on, forgetting those rows that are not exactly straight. We can’t go back and fix them, there isn’t time. If we will but remember our goal is heaven, and keep our eyes on Jesus, we will attain what He has meant for us. That mule at the end of the day gets fed, fresh water, and rubbed down, then he will rest. I am not saying we are like mules, but they are pretty focused, and we should be to. The same is true for us, we will have peace and we can rest to, knowing that Jesus is in control of our lives.
