What have you learned?

Hebrews 6:7-8 (NIV) Land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed receives the blessing of God. But land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless and is in danger of being cursed. In the end it will be burned.

Rainy days are often looked at with gloom. Most everyone would prefer a sunshiny day, as opposed to a rainy day on any occasion. But there is a blessing in rain. Rain causes growth and excellence. There would be no harvest without rain. Consider this- you are the land, and your "not so comfortable" life experiences are the rain. You must make the choice to produce a crop, based on what you have learned through your experiences. It is important that you put those lessons to use in order to receive the blessing of God. If you have gone through trying circumstances, and still you are not producing a good crop, you are considered worthless. Take time to understand your life lessons. Use them to help yourself, and others. God allows us to go through hardships to develop us. Much like the concept of rain and harvest. Do not think that you will avoid painful situations in life. It is how you grow and develop from those situations that separates the useful from the worthless.

Forgetting what lies behind

Philippians 3:13-14(NIV) 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.

A popular saying in our culture is: I can forgive but never forget. It leaves one wondering, is it even humanly possible to forget something that affected you in life? In this scripture Paul deliberately states that he is forgetting what lies behind him, and straining toward what is ahead. He did not say that he is overlooking what happened in the past. He did not say that he is ignoring what happened in the past. His exact word was forgetting. It's important for us to make a conscious decision every day to forget things that have happened before. Not just the bad, but sometimes even the good. We must stay constantly focused on moving forward. If there is something that has happened in your past that is stunting your emotional and spiritual growth- as impossible as this may sound- forget about it. Make the effort daily to focus on your forward movement, rather than past events. In Physics, an object's velocity cannot change unless it is acted upon by a force. In other words, we have to put some "umph" in it if we're ever going to get anywhere. Part of that "umph" is forgetting, and shifting that attention from what lies behind you to what lies ahead of you. One may argue that it is not healthy to ignore the past. In some cases that is true. But once you've reached the point of acceptance, the best thing to do is look forward. God has a prize for you once you have reached your goals, and he is calling you to it!