We all know the "Pay it Forward" movement. It is the perspective that giving to others something of the good that's been given to you is how you should live your life. I agree with it whole-heartedly. If everyone in the world lived that way, imagine the world we'd live in!
But I've come to love and embrace another concept I call "Live Forward." What I mean by living forward is that we only have one direction we actually can successfully live our lives--and that place is forward. Whether it's forward to this goal, or forward to that achievement, or forward to this relationship being reconciled, or as every believer should live, forward to heaven while living with eternity in our hearts.
Many of us resonate with the Apostle Paul's words in Philippians: "Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended, but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 3:13-14, ESV emphasis mine) According to Paul, our aim should be to forget and reach forward. I believe these verbs are indeed mutually exclusive. I don't believe we can do one without also doing the other.
It is important at times to look back, especially on mistakes we've made, sin we've committed, people we've hurt. We have to look back and see the under layers of those things SO THAT we might move forward. Once we've acknowledged and confessed what we've been or done and made every effort to nail it to the cross and if necessary, confessed to another and then together nailed those things to the cross, we are able to be active "forgetters." Looking back should always be the means of eventually forgetting the wrong, being rid of the regret and moving forward with faith, and as one continually being sanctified.
Unfortunately, what I too often do is look backward and linger. I stay there. I don't take the steps needed or I feel like I can't or I feel like I should have the chance to do it differently. I dwell over what I cannot change and in that, I am unable to forget and ultimately unable to move forward the way I must.
Thankfully, because the Spirit of God is active in my life as He is in the life of every true believer, He is merciful and reminds me that I can only live forward. I am not able to go back and live differently in the situation that is behind me. I am able, however, to live what I've learned in today's and tomorrow's opportunities and situations that I may find myself in. By God's grace, I want to be someone who knows how to live life forward in the big and the small, in the temporal and the eternal. I want to learn from the past and then move forward changed in the right ways. How about you? Are you ready to live your life forward ?
