I am still unsettled in this time of “social distancing” during the COVID-19 pandemic. (I wrote the whole thing out – just in case I read this in the future, I won’t forget why we were distancing ourselves.) When I say that I am unsettled, I believe I can also say that I am stuck.
While we are alone – we have time to think – and sometimes what we think is determined by how the “desks of our lives” are organized. When we have so much time alone – our minds become stuck in the past so completely that we cannot move forward. My past is always quick to cut in line to the front of my attention – and keeps the thoughts about the future – about hope – and about the determination to move forward – waiting in the wings. When I am stuck it’s almost impossible to bring my focus back around to the things ahead of me instead of what is behind me.
For many of us, the past thinks it should take priority over the present and the future just because of its certainty. We know what has already happened – so the past gloats over the power it has over us to control our gaze, our emotions, and our pride. But that doesn’t mean that the past should have priority. Our lives’ desks are often stacked high with the past folders on top of everything else waiting for our attention each day. So again and again, we pick up folders containing the past and review them before anything else. Our fascination with looking in the rear-view mirror and evaluating the past has kept our gazes stuck.
The past needs to be picked up, organized, and filed away – not eliminated, just in case we need to re-visit the important lessons that we gained from it. The past does not need to be piled up on our desks with no room for anything new to be added. Does this mean that the past is evil – and needs to be hidden? In most cases, no. If the past produces good lessons, fond memories, joy, peace and happiness, it does not need to be filed away where there is a chance it will be forgotten. Perhaps some of these great lessons and accomplishments should be hung on the walls or on a display shelf. These should be reminders to inspire us about what to continue to strive for. What does does need to be taken from the top of the desk and put into the file cabinet are painful lessons, and regretful mistakes. Perhaps the reason that we are not filing them away is because we find it hard to file them if they haven’t been forgiven. (That’s an insight – and probably the subject of another discussion.)
Sometimes we are not putting the past, present and future in the right places. All three should be put in the most useful places on/in our desks so that we can live a balanced, and focused life that continues to move forward and does not get stuck.
The steps Jesus took from Palm Sunday (Matthew 21, Mark 11 and John 12) to his betrayal and crucifixion (Matthew 26-27, Mark 15-16 and John 8-19) were probably not easy for Jesus. He needed keep his mind focused on the future. His clarity and focus about what was ahead was demonstrated by the way that he told his disciples what was to come (even if they did not understand it most of the time), and by the way that he continued in prayer for the support and strength that he needed to face certain pain, agony and death. I cannot fathom moving forward in such a way, knowing that there were people who wanted me dead. But I’m sure that what steeled Jesus’ resolve was the promise of a glorious future because his death would be the most important event in history. He was moving forward so that people could understand fully the lengths that God was willing to go to so that eternal death would be defeated once and for all.
On the other side of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, Paul urgently tried to be an example of someone who did not rely on his long-past “successes” of being a zealous Jew who defended his faith by persecuting Christians, nor did he dwell on how those “successes” were actually terrible mistakes. Neither did he rely on his current actions to advance faith in Christ be the end of his forward momentum. But he said that he would not stop trying to know Christ, to experience Christ’s power and to share in Christ’s sufferings. Paul said in Philippians 3:10-15: (New English Translation)
10 My aim is to know him, to experience the power of his resurrection, to share in his sufferings, and to be like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.
Keep Going Forward
12 Not that I have already attained this—that is, I have not already been perfected—but I strive to lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus also laid hold of me. 13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself to have attained this. Instead I am single-minded: Forgetting the things that are behind and reaching out for the things that are ahead, 14 with this goal in mind, I strive toward the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. 15 Therefore let those of us who are “perfect” embrace this point of view.
Paul measured his actions by how he pleased God by knowing and serving Christ. He had a focus that I envy very much today. I do not have his same experience with Christ, but I do want to serve Christ with the same desire. What I envy most is Paul’s single-mindedness. “Forgetting the things that are behind and reaching out for the things that are ahead.” I might be tempted to blame my past inability to move forward on all of this world’s distractions, but suspect that I really need to let the past file stay in the desk drawer and look at what is before me on the desk.
With the past files in the desk – there are still two piles left – the present and the future. I have to admit that this is the first time that I can remember when these piles also have me so stuck. There is an added file labeled “uncertainty mixed with fear” that is growing larger faster than I can deal with it. What I need to do is pray and meditate this week. I need to think more about how Christ took one step then another, then another toward the end of his ministry here on earth with no distraction. I need to calm the very real and numbing paralysis of fear mixed with “social distancing” with the very real faith that I have in Christ’s saving death and resurrection. This is the perfect time to put my life-desk in order – so that I can put that uncertainty file squarely out of sight to become unstuck and to move forward with the next step given to us where we are right now.
The present pile still has many possibilities for faithful service to God and the world right where I am physically. I am beginning to clear the desk, file the past folders, hide away the future uncertainty folder, and let God guide me and my present folder to the cross and beyond. Who’s with me?
Peace,
Deb
Pastor Deb Washer 
Written
on October 19, 2022