Forgetting the Past

As I grow older, I find that past failures sometimes dominate my memories, haunting me. How do I get past those moments when I made poor career decisions that affected my future or when I spoke without thinking and hurt other people?

Thoughts like these are paralysing. They could have been for the apostle Paul, too. He certainly had much to want to forget. Thinking he was pleasing God, he murdered Christians. When he was finally on the side of Jesus, he was rejected, beaten and stoned for his testimony. However, Paul’s God-inspired philosophy gave him renewed strength and drive for the mission that became his life: ‘Forgetting those things which are behind… I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus’ (KJV).

That has become my motto now. When negative memories attack, I remember this verse. It is as if the Holy Spirit whispers to me, ‘Forget those things which are behind.’ I am free to become productive once more.