“This 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 Jesus Christ.” Phil. 3:13-14
No one thought she would make it. Yet there she was on the podium with three other gymnasts from across the province. She stood there, shocked, her mouth full, remnants of granola bar crumbs still stuck to her fingers. She placed 4th overall—an impossible outcome in what was supposed to be her last gymnastics competition.
Her coaches didn’t think she would do well, and they told me so, just to keep the expectations low. They told her that she wasn’t strong enough. She lacked a successful kip on the bars and was unable to master a round-off back handspring for her floor routine. The coaches reminded her daily that these elements were necessary to be successful in the Provincials—the qualifying meet for the next level of competition. The top four in each age group at Provincials would advance to the bigger stage at Atlantics, where gymnasts from four provinces would compete. Like all the gymnasts, Alli’s goal for this meet was to finish in the top four.
During training sessions, the coaches focused on her shortcomings and failures. They made predictions and presumptions based on those failures. But my daughter and I focused on something else, someone else. She felt the pressure leading up to the Provincials meet, and she usually left training sessions discouraged as the dreaded back handspring and kip remained out of reach. Each night during the long drive home, I encouraged her to fix her gaze past these so-called failures and look to the Lord. Just go and do your best, enjoy it, relax.
I remember praying with her that morning of the provincial qualifying meet. I encouraged her to forget everything else, to go in the strength the Lord provides, and to look to Him in each routine. I reassured her that if she did that, she would be pleased with the result, no matter what it was.
The Lord was with her, and what she lacked in strength, she made up for in grace and grit. She nailed her floor routine. Though her routine wasn’t as difficult as the other competitors, she moved in perfect form with grace and beauty. She stuck her beam sequence—her long, lean legs holding their point. Her kip-less bar routine was strong and fluid.
When it was all over, she sat with her teammates smiling and contentedly munched on a snack. Then the announcer called the competitors’ places. Fourth overall: Allison O’Donnell. Alli stopped chewing, dumbfounded by hearing her name called. As she processed what was happening, one of the parents called out, Alli! Go up! to snap her out of her oblivion. Still chewing her snack, she ran to the podium to claim her medal and become a member of Team Atlantic.
Her coach was as surprised as she was.
How often do we let our past failures affect our present moments? Even as I write this, I feel the ache of today’s failures gnawing on my mind, threatening to steal my joy. I feel like I’ve disqualified myself from writing on this topic except that I was recently challenged by Paul’s words to the Philippian church:
“This 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 Jesus Christ.” Phil. 3:13-14
I can speak from personal experience that to do so is a battle. As I meditated on this verse, I wondered how much time I have wasted, how much energy I’ve consumed, how many opportunities I’ve lost because I was stuck dwelling on my failure—a reel set to never-ending replay on the screen of my mind. I shudder at what the answer might be. They don’t even have to be big failures to keep me from being fruitful. I’ve heard it called morbid introspection. Whatever its name, I’d consider myself a professional. Maybe you can relate?
Paul reminds us that our gaze ought to be upward, not inward. And J.C. Ryle would agree: “Do not be always pouring down over the imperfections of your own heart, and dissecting your own besetting sins. Look up. Look more to your risen Head in heaven, and try to realize more than you do that the Lord Jesus not only died for you, but that He also rose again, and that He is ever living at God’s right hand as your Priest, your Advocate, and your Almighty friend.”
Faith is the key to keeping our eyes fixed heavenward. Faith keeps us straining for what lies ahead, pressing on. Paul wasn’t suggesting we overlook our sins, ignore them, or take them lightly. Instead, we confess them. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1John 1:9). Faith is what helps us to forget our failures as we live in the truth of this verse, reaching forward in the righteousness of our risen Saviour.
Knowing how prone to pride we are, Paul doesn’t instruct us to just forget our failures, but also our successes. So often we can hit the replay button of all that we did well today, over and over again in our mind, each time getting a little more full of ourselves for how good we did. Paul is commanding each of us not to focus on the failures, nor the successes, as anything. Instead, let us lift our gaze to Christ, who is everything. For without Him, we can do nothing
Robert Murray McCheyne has some helpful words: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jer. 17:9). Learn much of the Lord Jesus. For every look at yourself, take ten looks at Christ. He is altogether lovely. Such infinite majesty, and yet such meekness and grace, and all for sinners, even the chief! Live much in the smiles of God. Bask in his beams. Feel his all-seeing eye settled on you in love, and repose in his almighty arms……. Let your soul be filled with a heart-ravishing sense of the sweetness and excellency of Christ and all that is in Him. Let the Holy Spirit fill every chamber of your heart; and so there will be no room for folly, or the world, or Satan, or the flesh.” Can we just let these words settle deep?
By the grace of God, my daughter achieved her goal before she ‘retired’ at the ripe age of twelve. Though she was weak, she successfully performed the elusive kip in her bar routine at Atlantics. She was pretty pleased, and I captured it with my video camera—a permanent reminder of her final gymnastics achievement.
A year or so later, my son borrowed the video camera to film a skit he was working on for a school project. He inadvertently recorded over his sister’s Atlantics meet bar routine. Now, just as Alli prepares to go into her kip, the video abruptly cuts to a scene with two teenage boys having a muffled conversation in French. It’s a short 30-second interruption, but by the time it’s over, so is Alli’s bar routine—erased forever from its digital reel.
Though it was a devastating blow at the time, in keeping with God’s truth, Alli has forgiven and forgotten what lies behind. It’s now history that gives us a good chuckle once in a while as my now adult children reminisce over the by-gone days of childhood.
Take Up & Read
Phil. 3:12-15
Luke 9:62
Col. 3:1-4
Eph. 1:3-14
The Light for My Path 