Forward Only: God is Calling

Hopping in the family car for a long drive was always an adventure for us as children.  Many Sunday afternoon drives led to our old family farm, purchased in 1912. Driving down the two-lane highway, we would take special notice of the dip in the road where old, dead trees sat in quicksand. As we passed, Dad always told of the horses and buggies buried deep in that deceiving piece of earth. We would continue on, passing the little brick home where our grandparents started married life in the fall of 1927.  Finally, we would turn down a dusty country road with rows of corn on each side until we would arrive at the property where only a patch of tiger lilies and an old foundation remained from the days when our great-grandparents lived there, raising two strong sons.

We would spread a blanket and sit watching tractors in the distance as they worked through the fields. After Dad’s short nap we would take the same route back to town, often stopping for ice cream or a soda at the little country store. Those were fun afternoons, driving with the windows down and taking in the smells of country life. Still,  it was always good to be back home at the end of our little journey.

Life isn’t a Sunday drive for sure! We can’t make a journey forward and then go back again.  God designed life this  way– moving in one direction, forward only:

No, dear brothers, I am still not all I should be, but I am bringing all my energies to bear on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I strain to reach the end of the race and receive the prize for which God is calling us up to heaven because of what Christ Jesus did for us.  Philippians 3:13-14

How often do we wish we could go back and change something we said or did, or have the ability to go back and change an event that instead changed us? Most of us have encountered more than one circumstance in life where we would have said or done something completely different, or worked to change the course of things.  Instead, we must trust in God and in the beauty of His desire to make all things new, giving us the courage to “strain to reach the end of the race and receive the prize for which God is calling…” So whatever is may be that you are facing, no matter how rough the road before you, trust in God and move forward. He will be there with you.