Here we are seven days into the new year. Seems like 2024 just began yesterday, and here we are in 2025. I gave up on making New Year resolutions many years ago. Does anyone ever keep them, anyway?
On the other hand, I do have several goals I want to achieve. I’ve had some difficulty motivating myself to get moving on those goals, however.
What’s held me up is how easy it is to focus on all the things I didn’t accomplish in 2024. So I get stuck in the swamp of discouragement and start thinking, “why should I bother?”
Every January 1 I recall a picture or allegory of what I call The New Year Man. He has two faces. One belongs to an old, bearded, weathered man. The other face is that of a baby. One of my elementary school teachers told us the allegory and asked us what it meant. I raised my hand. I answered that the old man is looking back on the old year, while the baby is looking forward to the new. I don’t know how I knew that. I was a voracious reader, so perhaps I’d come across the image somewhere.
The key is that the old man of the past year has been replaced by the baby of the new year. The mess ups and failures of the past year are gone. Hopefully we learned something from our mistakes and not repeat them.
In Philippians 3:12-14 Paul gave us great words of wisdom.
12 Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. 13 Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. (NASB)
The Apostle Paul had great regrets about his early life, but he more than made up for it by the life he later lived for the Lord. Under the Lord’s direction he led people to Christ and started new churches all over western Asia Minor and part of Greece. As if that weren’t enough, he penned half of our New Testament. He learned what he needed to learn from his past mistakes, then made sure to forget the past. Like a runner in a race he was pressing on for what was before him. Forget about that stumble back in the third lap. Just keep your eyes on the goal.
By the way, Paul wrote his letter to the Philippians while he was in prison in Rome. He knew that sooner or later he would be facing execution. In spite of this, he is jubilant. He spends two verses in chapter 1 (22-23) expressing a desire to leave the world behind, but recovers quickly and in verse 24 he says, “but to remain . . . is more necessary for your sake.”
Joy is Paul’s theme in this book. Over and over again he urges his readers to rejoice. And he expresses his determination to press on toward the goal of the upward call.
That is where we should be living. I know it’s not always easy. I tend to be a glass half-empty kind of person, so optimism is not my thing. But God equips us for the job He has called us to do. Teach a class? Work in the church nursery? Sing in the choir? Go to the mission field? God goes before us. He walks beside us. That’s why Paul could say, “Rejoice.”
It’s hard to rejoice when you’re looking at past mistakes. Forget what lies behind. Press on toward the goal God has set before you.
And don’t forget to rejoice!
