quarterbacks and salmon

As I have mentioned, getting back on the horse in this journey has not been easy.

The idea of pressing on and moving forward has seemed challenging. I am not that far from the “end’ of this thirty third year. I cannot help but have mixed emotions about that.

I KNOW what God has done and that this year is only a start of a journey and not a journey to a destination but it is easy for me to think of all the many ways I have failed in light of my early victories. The miles I ran, the plans I had, the success I felt I was achieving.


But as I think about moving forward I cannot help but think of Philippians 3, “Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead…”

Sometimes I think "forgetting what is behind" gets pigeon holed into defining moments of failue. Sometimes that is the case but I think that it can also speak to our successes.

It's easy to become like the quarterback who had their glory days in high school becuase they were the prom king and dated the cheerleader but never really made much of their life. In the movies you always see them sitting in a bar, middle aged and balding with a bit of a gut talking about how they could have gone pro if they hadnt blown their knee out.

I don't want to be that guy...ok girl.

I dont want the glory days to be based on successes I once had. The past is the past. Good, bad or otherwise. We have to leave it there. We have to let it be what it was and press on toward what WILL be.

We can only be the person we are TODAY and we need to choose to love that person, faults and all. Yet, we need to keep pushing forward. We dont simply forget what is behind. We also strain toward what lies ahead. The prize isnt behind us, its in front of us.

We have to keep moving forward because like it or not we are always moving one way or another. Somedays ot can seem like we are one of those poor salmon FIGHTING to get up stream, beating our bodies against the current. If they stop fighting, they get swept away. I read up on these Salmon and found that they are drawn there by the smell of their home waters. Once they get there, the fufill their purpose of mating and laying eggs and then they die.

There is a goal, a destination and ultimately a purpose. The fight to get home.

We all have goals. They remain ever ahead of us. They are not just for seasons but for a lifetime. They are always before us until we get home, we complete our tasks and we are drawn into the presence of Jesus.

I dont want to live in the past.

I want to keep fighting upstream, drawn by the fragrance of my home waters.

Heaven.

I want to press forward with all my might, through the rocks and past the water falls. No matter how hard the journey may be. I want to press on.

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