Looking Forward

I love my two little girls...so so much...but there is something both of them do that drive me insane.  I don't know why it bugs me so much, but it does.  Both of my sweet little girls look everywhere else when they are walking, except in front of them.  They will become so focused on something, and instead of just a quick glance, completely ignoring it, or stopping to look, they keep walking while looking at it.  This usually results in me getting on them, or they run into something and end up hurting themselves.  This just happened once again yesterday, and as I told my oldest to pay attention and look forward, I thought about how God tells us to look ahead and not focus on things behind us.  Paul tells us this in Philippians 3:12-14.

"Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, 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 love the part in the passage where it says "forgetting what is behind".  I think this is a struggle for a lot of Christians.  We want to live for Christ, and focus on where we are going and what we are doing, but we get distracted by what is behind us...our past.  For some of us, our past is pretty ugly and Satan loves to use that to take our focus of whats ahead.  When we decided to look behind us, we can sometimes end up hurt, like how my daughters sometimes get hurt when they're not looking.  Or sometimes we can hurt others.  No matter what, when we look and focus on what is behind us, we lose focus on what our goal is.
Think about it; I'm sure there have been times you were walking towards something, another object caught your eye, and you continued walking even though we weren't looking in the direction you were going.  When you finally do, were you still walking a straight line; still headed the same way?  I know for me, a lot of times I see I'm walking a different way.  Same thing with people who drive and start looking at other things or look out the window.  A lot of times the car ends up swerving, or you cross the line, which could be detrimental. 

As Christians we are to be focused on what is in front of us, the goal.  And our goal is different from the worlds.  Our goal has an eternal factor.  An everlasting affect.

Now we of course aren't perfect; we are going to have times when we struggle and lose focus, but its how we handle those times that matters.  My past still likes to taunt me, and there are times I end up looking at it.  What matters is that I focus more on God and what He has for my life. 

Its hard to keep pure if we continue to look behind, but if we keep focused on the goal and the road God has laid before us, a life of purity will be easier and you will find more satisfaction than the world could offer.