Press On

Lately I’ve been wondering if Jesus ever wanted to go back to the miracle in Cana. 

I often see things I’ve posted in the past pop up on Facebook, and I marvel that I ever wrote them. I wonder at the spiritual food present in those writings, where did such nourishment come from? Surely not my own heart. A heart full of rooms with creaky doors and dusty corners. A heart that looks back on things I’ve written in the past, longing to feel the tangible nearness of Christ I felt then, rather than the faith I’m being taught to have in His presence now. 

Sometimes I long to go back to those days in my barn. Those days of His palpable presence and the outpouring of His living water day after day. And I wonder if Jesus ever longed to go back to simpler days during times when the Father was teaching Him the grueling exercise of pressing on? Pressing on in the silence? Pressing on in the darkness? Pressing on when you feel nothing at all? Pressing on when you feel too much? Pressing on when you are tempted to look back on “once was,” instead of looking ahead for the “to be.”

Paul teaches that we must not dwell on the things that have passed behind us, but rather, we must press on…”straining toward what is ahead.” He says we must “press on toward the goal to win the prize of God’s heavenly calling in Christ Jesus.” And I believe that Paul teaches us this because he was well-acquainted with the temptation to look back with longing for simpler days and mountaintop moments. 

But he was also well-acquainted with the Spirit of Christ, Who continually calls to us, “Press on!”

(Phil 3:13,14) 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 of God’s heavenly calling in Christ Jesus.

(Heb 12:1,2) Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off every encumbrance and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with endurance the race set out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith…

(Heb 3:1) Therefore, holy brothers, who share in the heavenly calling, set your focus on Jesus, the apostle and high priest whom we confess.