Forgetting what is behind

Am I the only one who has an uncanny ability to focus on all that is wrong in (my) life? When asked the quick "glass half full or half empty?" question, I almost always say "half-full". But, in all honesty, that usually just applies to the glass. With respect to my own life, if I'm honest, I must admit that I am a bit of a pessimist. I'm great at beating myself up over past (and current) mistakes and worrying about the future.

As a Christian, I believe it's important to understand one's own depravity and sinfulness. Just as those who aren't sick don't need a doctor, if people weren't sinful, we'd have no need for a savior, and Christ wouldn't have needed to come. So, in order to understand the absolute necessity of Christ, we must have a proper view of the mess we're in and our inability to pull ourselves out of it. After God gives us grace and wisdom to grasp our fallenness and need for Him, we can genuinely repent and begin to understand the greatness of his gift to us in the cross. In my head, I understand all of this to be true. It's the foundation of the Gospel.

However, as I've written before, I have a really hard time getting past focusing on myself. I probably have as thorough an understanding of my depravity and sinfulness as anyone on the planet. I am a mess and I make mistakes on a regular basis, often the same ones over and over, despite my greatest attempts and desires not to. Though I wish I weren't, I am often selfish, prideful, inconsiderate, and too worried about what other's think of me. While all that sounds pretty depressing, I have confidence that, like I said, this understanding can and should direct me to a thankful heart for what Christ has done for me and a need for dependence on him.

Instead, though, I tend to get stuck in ruts. I either focus on past or current failures, and I convince myself that God will be near, in a fruitful relationship with me when (and only when) I get everything figured out and I pull myself together. However, I know in my head that's a lie. He might be directing me to fix things and he certainly will convict me in areas where conviction in needed, but he doesn't want me to stop and dwell on all my problems and forget that he is the solution.

This morning, in my quiet time, I stumbled over this verse, which I've read many times, but it hit me in a new way and it was just the encouragement I needed.

Philippians 3:12-14 "Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. 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."

I am praying today that God would (daily) help me to forget what is behind and strain toward what is ahead. If Paul wasn't made perfect, maybe I (we) don't have to be either. We certainly don't have to (and aren't able to) work everything out ourselves.