August 5

“To forget the things that are behind is an essential part of pressing forward toward the prize of our high calling [Philippians 3:13-14]; and I am convinced this prize can never be reached unless we will consent to this forgetting.”  Hannah Whitall Smith, Daily Secrets, 8/5

For a person who tends to remember everything anyone has ever done to her this would be a radical accomplishment!  I not only remember other’s misdeeds, I remember my own--only I call them mistakes when they pertain to me!  But Hannah’s words have touched me and I can see where I must consent to forgetting the things of the past.  I may have forgiven them at some point, but if I continue to remember them it will continually cause me to hesitate before I risk loving that person fully.  I will always be on guard with them.  It would make “sense” to do so, but then God’s kind of love doesn’t make sense does it.  He loved us so much that He sent His only Son to die for us while we were yet sinners while we were yet not even aware of our need for a Savior.  He was rejected by His own people to the point of being despised and treated cruelly.  No one would have blamed Him if He’d just waved His hand and wiped everybody out!  But He didn’t.  The key to allowing this kind of love to flow through us is for us to get out of the way, and the only way we can do this is to consent to forget the things that are behind.

“I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”  1 Philippians 3:14