Forgetting what is behind
Paul straining forward
Picture the runner in the final straight. He does not turn his head to admire the part of the track already behind him, does not relive the stumble at the start that nearly cost him everything; his eyes are locked on the tape, his whole body straining toward it. Paul reaches for that image from a prison cell, and he of all people had a full track behind him to relive. There were the proud old credentials, the pedigree he once counted as gain, a religious resume that had been his whole identity. And there was the wreckage, the violent failures, the blood on his hands before the Damascus road. He could have spent his life facing either direction. Instead he says he does one thing: forgets what lies behind and strains toward what lies ahead. Two backward pulls snare people coming through upheaval, and Paul names neither as harmless: the ache of nostalgia for the certainty that broke, and the endless replay of the rubble and who caused it. Over both, God speaks the same word through Isaiah. Do not keep staring at the former things. Behold, I am doing a new thing, even now carving a road through the wilderness and running rivers across the desert.
“Forgetting the things which are behind, and stretching forward to the things which are before, I press on toward the goal.”
— Paul, to the Philippians — Philippians 3:13-14 (WEB)
“Don't remember the former things, neither consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing... I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.”
Reorientation means getting your eyes off the rearview mirror, both the golden past and the painful one. The runner does not study the track behind him; he strains for the tape. This phase is not denial of what happened but a refusal to let it own your gaze. It turns you forward, toward the new thing God is doing, the road He is even now carving through the wilderness you are still standing in.
Two backward glances can trap you, and you should know which one has hold of your neck. One is nostalgia, the aching wish to go back to the faith you had before it cracked, when the answers were simple and the ground felt solid. The other is rumination, the loop that plays the wreckage again and again, rehearsing the wound and the names of those who caused it. Paul names a cleaner discipline than either, the one thing of forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead. Hear clearly what this is not. This is not denial. It is refusing to let the past own your gaze.
It is not pretending the past did not happen, or that the loss did not cost you, or that the wrong done to you was nothing. You are not asked to erase the track you have run. You are asked to stop letting it own your gaze. There is a difference between honoring what happened and living with your head permanently turned backward. God says He is doing a new thing, that He is making a road through the very wilderness you are standing in. Turn your face toward it. The tape is ahead of you, not behind.
The whole Church can get stuck facing backward, either pining for a golden age of fuller pews and unquestioned standing, or endlessly relitigating old wounds and the splits they caused. Paul's forward strain, and the LORD's promise of a new thing, call the Body out of the rearview mirror. The recurring upheaval Phyllis Tickle described, an interpretive lens rather than a prophecy, was never meant to drag Christianity back into a tidied past; it clears the way forward. Across history the movements that grieved honestly yet refused to live in the rubble, watching for the road God was carving through the wilderness, are the ones that moved ahead. Before a watching world, the Body is called forward, not back.
Both the remembered glory and the remembered injury lose their grip eventually, because neither is the destination. What cannot be shaken is the God who is always out ahead of you, doing a new thing, capable of running a river through any desert you find yourself crossing. The track behind you is finished. The road in front of you is His.
- Which backward pull has the firmer grip on me right now, nostalgia for what broke or rumination on the wreckage?
- Where have I confused honoring my past with living permanently with my head turned toward it?
- If God is genuinely doing a new thing ahead of me, what would it look like to turn my face toward it this week?
Lord, I keep turning my head backward, sometimes aching for what broke, sometimes replaying the wreckage and the names. Teach me Paul's one thing, to forget what is behind and strain toward what is ahead, without pretending the past away. You say You are doing a new thing, a road through my wilderness. Turn my face toward it. Amen.