Each year, as New Year’s Day arrives, believers wrestle quietly with one of the Apostle Paul’s most puzzling assertions: “One thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal” (Phil 3:13-14).
How—exactly—is it possible to “forget what lies behind”?
The year just lived was full of slights and insults: they fester unforgettably each time that face or name appears.
The year just past brought wounds—both planned and unintentional. Can willing it remove the evidence of scars?
The year gone by saw failures—ours and others—whose effects cannot be trimmed by noting January 1. Will the famed power of positive thinking erase the pain of choices we or others made?
We only can forget what we’ve forgiven—done by us, or done by others. And we only can forgive when we’re forgiven—by a power outside ourselves who cannot lie. God “never changes or casts a shifting shadow” (James 1:17).
“God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them” (2 Cor 5:19).
What God forgets, we safely can forget. When God forgives, we find His grace to add our own, releasing others and ourselves from all of last year’s failures.
Grace doesn’t simply turn the page. It sees, acknowledges, forgives—and gradually forgets. The year ahead will help us practice our forgetting.
So stay in grace. -Bill Knott
WHY WE FORGIVE (July 31, 2020)
CAN'T HELP OURSELVES (July 24, 2020)
SAY 'THANK YOU' (July 17, 2020)
BELIEVABLY GOOD NEWS (July 10, 2020)
OPENING THE GATES (July 3, 2020)
ONE GOOD WORK (June 26, 2020)
WALKING TOGETHER (June 19, 2020)
RIGHTING OUR OWN WRONGS (June 12, 2020)
FIRST PERSONAL PLURAL (June 5, 2020)
WIDENING THE CIRCLE (May 29, 2020)
RECEIVED—AND GIVEN (May 22, 2020)
GRACE WITHOUT FEAR (May 15, 2020)
GRACE WHILE WE WAIT (May 8, 2020)
GRACE REACHING (May 1, 2020)
ALL OF GRACE (APRIL 24, 2020)
TRUSTING WHAT'S TRUE (April 17, 2020)
MORNING HAS BROKEN (April 10, 2020)
WHEN I'M AFRAID (April 3, 2020)
ALONE, NOT LONELY (MARCH 27, 2020)
GRACE DURING THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Cast The Word
Let Me Be Frank | Bishop Frank Caggiano’s Podcast | Diocese of Bridgeport, CT
The Kingdom Power Fellowship Podcast
The Bible Recap
The Bible in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz)