Happy New Year and welcome to 2025. 2024 is history, what is written on its 366 pages is now sealed and cannot be altered. The days of 2025 lay out in front of us like the pages of a book on which no one has yet written.
For all of us, the days behind, hold memories of successes and failures, joys and sorrows, hope and disappointment, gain and loss. But we must understand that what is done is done. The events of 2024 cannot be relived or rewritten. Though we can and should learn lessons from these past events, they are behind us.
In the famous devotional work, My Utmost for His Highest, we read these words from Oswald Chambers on the page marked December 31. “Our yesterdays present irreparable things to us; it is true that we have lost opportunities which will never return, but God can transform this destructive anxiety into a constructive thoughtfulness for the future. Let the past sleep, but let it sleep on the bosom of Christ. Leave the Irreparable Past in His hands, and step out into the Irresistible future with Him.”
In his letter to the Church at Philippi, the Apostle Paul wrote, “But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13-14).
Just as one cannot navigate a winding mountain road by gazing into the review mirror, it is also impossible to successfully navigate the days that lay out before us, looking over our shoulders.
Paul’s exhortation is that we forget what lies behind us. His admonition is not to forget our past, for along the way we all have wonderful memories that will fill our heart with joy forever. However, we are not to be so attached to the past that it hamstrings us and keeps us from living a fruitful and victorious life in the days ahead. Or as Oswald said, “Let the past sleep, but let it sleep on the bosom of Jesus.”
The Apostle calls us to reach forward, to press on to what lies ahead. He compared our present lives to the running of a race. He said, “Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win” (I Corinthians 9:24). And again, “…let us also lay aside every unnecessary weight and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us” (Hebrews 12:1).
If you have ever watched a track and field event you have noticed that no one runs a race in combat boots while carrying a loaded backpack. No! If you weighed the sprinter’s clothing on a scale, it would barely move the needle.
The writer of Hebrews is exhorting us to spiritually and emotionally strip down to the bare minimum that we may run the race before us with endurance, unencumbered by the unnecessary weights of the past. The sprinter’s focus is always ahead, not to the right, not to the left, not over his shoulder. His eyes are focused on one thing, the tape at the finish line. As the sprinter focuses on the finish line tape, we are exhorted to fix our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfector of faith.
Yesterday is behind us, let it rest. Press on my brothers and sisters, press on with your eyes fixed on Jesus so that you may successfully navigate the course of life that is set out before you in the coming year.
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