'Forgetting the things that are behind.' The art of forgetting has much
to do with the blessedness and power of every life. Of course, when the
Apostle says 'Forgetting the things that are behind,' he is thinking of
the runner, who has no time to cast his eye over his shoulder to mark
the steps already trod. He does not mean, of course, either, to tell us
that we are so to cultivate obliviousness as to let God's mercies to us
'lie forgotten in unthankfulness, or without praises die.' Nor does he
mean to tell us that we are to deny ourselves the solace of remembering
the mercies which may, perhaps, have gone from us. Memory may be like
the calm radiance that fills the western sky from a sun that has set,
sad and yet sweet, melancholy and lovely. But he means that we should so
forget as, by the oblivion, to strengthen our concentration.
So I would say, let us remember, and yet forget, our past failures and
faults. Let us remember them in order that the remembrance may cultivate
in us a wise chastening of our self-confidence. Let us remember where we
were foiled, in order that we may be the more careful of that place
hereafter. If we know that upon any road we fell into ambushes, 'not
once nor twice,' like the old king of Israel, we should guard ourselves
against passing by that road again. He who has not learned, by the
memory of his past failures, humility and wise government of his life,
and wise avoidance of places where he is weak, is an incurable fool.
But let us forget our failures in so far as these might paralyse our
hopes, or make us fancy that future success is impossible where past
failures frown. Ebenezer was a field of defeat before it rang with the
hymns of victory. And there is no place in your past life where you have
been shamefully baffled and beaten, but there, and in that, you may yet
be victorious. Never let the past limit your hopes of the possibilities
and your confidence in the certainties and victories of the future. And
if ever you are tempted to say to yourselves, 'I have tried it so often,
and so often failed, that it is no use trying it any more. I am beaten
and I throw up the sponge,' remember Paul's wise exhortation, and
'forgetting the things that are behind . . . press toward the mark.'
In like manner I would say, remember and yet forget past successes and
achievements. Remember them for thankfulness, remember them for hope,
remember them for counsel and instruction, but forget them when they
tend, as all that we accomplish does tend, to make us fancy that little
more remains to be done; and forget them when they tend, as all that we
accomplish ever does tend, to make us think that such and such things
are our line, and of other virtues and graces and achievements of
culture and of character, that these are not our line, and not to be won
by us.
'Our line!' Astronomers take a thin thread from a spider's web and
stretch it across their object glasses to measure stellar magnitudes.
Just as is the spider's line in comparison with the whole shining
surface of the sun across which it is stretched, so is what we have
already attained to the boundless might and glory of that to which we
may come. Nothing short of the full measure of the likeness of Jesus
Christ is the measure of our possibilities.
There is a mannerism in Christian life, as there is in everything else,
which is to be avoided if we would grow into perfection. There was a
great artist in the last century who never could paint a picture without
sticking a brown tree in the foreground. We have all got our 'brown
trees,' which we think we can do well, and these limit our ambition to
secure other gifts which God is ready to bestow upon us. So 'forget the
things that are behind.' Cultivate a wise obliviousness of past sorrows,
past joys, past failures, past gifts, past achievements, in so far as
these might limit the audacity of our hopes and the energy of our
efforts.