FRONT AND BACK VIEWS

One skill I needed to learn as a beginning driver was checking the rear-view mirror. Besides helping with parallel parking (this before the wonderful invention of back-up cams), it kept me aware of traffic behind me for any lane changes or turns. In my spiritual “travels,” I also need a big front “future perspective” and a just-big-enough rear-view memory. That's how I might describe Paul's advice to the Philippians, written from a Roman prison where he had lots of time to reflect on freedom and bondage.

His key phrase is “press on.” Today we're more apt to use those words for finishing a personal goal, like a difficult project, job training or college. We know the steps we need to take, and one by one we tackle them. Paul had a different outlook, stuck in neutral in a foreign land because he followed and preached Christ. Yet his words still teach:

Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it [“it” meaning “that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me”–v. 12, to preach about Christ]. 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 3:13-14)

His phrase, “straining toward what is ahead,” grips me. In the original Greek, the word is epekteino, meaning “to stretch forth.” This definition suggests a runner leaning forward with a last, huge effort to be the first to break the finish line tape. Indeed, Paul had a “finish line” in view: “the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus” (v. 14).

Aside from the historical and technology gap, I just don't see Paul sitting around with his personal electronics, cruising through web sites or checking social media. While such inventions have enabled us to spread the Gospel, they've also fostered an “all-about-me” mentality more focused on “earthly things” (3:20) that can cool spiritual passion.

Paul's focus was helping people become spiritually transformed through a relationship with the risen Christ. He “looked behind” (at his pre-Christ life) just enough to know the misery he was in, and that he caused for others. But he kept his eyes on what's ahead: eternity with His Savior and that personal audience with God to answer the question, “What have you done for Me?”

Today, getting one's driver's license seems to be the “coming of age” goal for 16-year-olds. I was closer to twenty when I got mine. Part of the reason was that we were a one-car family on a limited budget. My mother would have to take Dad to work (5 miles away) and later pick him up to be able to use the car herself for that day's errands. Having a “kid car” just wasn't in the family budget until years later, when I was almost through college and had gotten a job as a newspaper reporter to help pay college expenses. It required that I drive around to interview people. So yes, I learned to watch those rear-view AND side mirrors to be as safe a driver as I could be.

That still tends to be my spiritual style. I'm forward-looking in faith through Bible study, fellowship, and prayer. I stay away from spiritual distractions like unhealthy relationships. And I look briefly back, with gratitude, on the road of life I've already passed over, thanking God for the journey and the destination ahead.