the pattern of my living.
I surrender to you my hopes, my dreams, my ambitions.
Do with them what you will, when you will, as you will.
I place into your loving care my family, friends and my future.
I release into your hands my need to control, my craving for status, my fear of obscurity.
Eradicate all evil, purify the good.
Establish your kingdom on earth.
For Jesus’ sake.
Amen.
(Anonymous)
Chapter Four: Looking Forward
Forgetting what is behind…I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:13–14)
Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards. (Soren Kierkegaard)19
A lot of people live in the past, and at times we hear them say, “what if” or “if only.” Others simply reminisce and fail to look to the future and all that lies ahead.
If we allow the past to be the present focus of our life, we simply live out our days reminiscing or moaning about our failures or lost opportunities, and we never look forward to the new opportunities and challenges that are before us. Steven Jobs at 30 years of age was fired from Apple. In 2005, he spoke of this experience at the commencement at Stanford University. This is what he said to these young graduates as they embarked on their future:
I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life…When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything—all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure—these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.20
How often have you said, “what if” or “if only”? We may have regrets about decisions we have made and how the outcome negatively affected our life, or perhaps we never took risks and simply lived life in the “safe zone.” Now we wonder what would have happened “if only I had…” or “what if” circumstances were different—would I have made other decisions?
Living in the present is about the here and now, making the most of the situations you find yourself in. Living in the future is about planning for your tomorrows, seeing the path your life is on and evaluating its direction to determine if it is going to give your life the meaning you want or desire.
Are you living in the past, bemoaning lost opportunities, or are you choosing to live each day to the fullest with your eye on the future?
The apostle Paul was a forward-living person. He wrote,
Not that I…have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, 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, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:12–14)
Paul chose to live each day with his eye toward the future because he saw that life was about “one thing.” Imagine being so focused that there is only one thing that really matters, and it is the driving force of your life. Most have so many competing loyalties that life is not focused but fragmented and scattered, and consequently we are pulled in many different directions. Imagine being able to say like Paul “one thing I do.”
In the Old Testament there is an amazing story of a young Jewish woman named Esther. Her life was about “one thing.” At the time of Esther the Jews were living in exile in Persia. The ruler, King Xerxes, wanted to display his wife before all his guests at a prestigious banquet he was giving. The queen refused to be treated as an object of display, and as a result the king in anger had her removed from his presence forever. A search to replace the queen was conducted, and it concluded when the king was attracted to the young Jewish woman Esther and crowned her queen.
Now Esther had been raised by her uncle, Mordecai, who told her to keep her family background and nationality a secret. One of the royal officials, a man called Haman, was not only a high ranking official in the government but also close to the king. This man loved to be acknowledged by the masses, and he expected everyone to bow before him whenever he went out in public. One man, a Jew named Mordecai, refused to bow or pay him honour. This infuriated Haman to such a degree that he devised a plot to exterminate all the Jews in the entire kingdom of Xerxes. He had the king issue an edict that stated they were to “kill and annihilate all the Jews—young and old, women and little children—on a single day, the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, the month of Adar, and to plunder their goods” (Esther 3:13). All the Jews were in great distress and turmoil.
Mordecai, Esther’s uncle, approached her and told her she was the one hope for the entire nation. Only she could change the mind of the king. In fact, even though she was the queen, her life would not be spared, because she too was Jewish! Then Mordecai spoke to Esther words that have resonated throughout the centuries: “Who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14). Esther was challenged by Mordecai’s words and replied, “I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish” (Esther 4:16). Suddenly her life became focused; it was all about one thing—saving a nation!
Most are not called to save a nation, but like the apostle Paul our life can become so focused that we can say, “One thing I do!” To be able to do this we will need to discover what is really important, and to do that we may have to get rid of some baggage we carry around from the past.
Paul said he needed to forget the past. What was there about his past that could hinder his moving forward? First, he had his reputation. He was an ardent Jew; he kept all the requirements of the law, and he was zealous in his persecution of the church. He consented to the stoning of Stephen, the first Christian martyr, and he was involved in the rounding up and incarceration of the followers of Jesus. Could he let go of these memories of the terrible things he did in his past, or would they remain etched forever in his mind, constantly reminding him that he had been a zealous but misguided religious fanatic?
There were others aspects of his life that he would need to let go. When he became a follower of Jesus he discovered many other challenges that could have had a negative effect on him and easily become the focus of his life. Paul summarized his life experiences:
What anyone else dares to boast about—I am speaking as a fool—I also dare to boast about. Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they Abraham’s descendants? So am I. Are they servants of Christ? (I am out of my mind to talk like this.) I am more. I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. (2 Corinthians 11:21–23)
Paul knew there were some who were envious of him and the success he had in establishing churches though out Asia Minor. Knowing himself as he did, it would have been easy for Paul to assume that he was more committed to the cause of Christ than anyone else. He had to let all of this go if he was to do “one thing” and not allow pride to control his life.
Jeremy Lin of the New York Nicks had to focus on one thing. Eryn Sun of Christian Post tells how Lin struggled in his early