God is not through with you and me yet!

“No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead” (Philippians 3:13 NLT).

Forward Thinking!

“D E C L I N E!?” It was 1975 and I was having lunch privately with the queen of gospel music, the Electrifying Evangelist Shirley Caesar, as she was known then. I traveled and worked with her for some time in those years. A few years earlier, she had won her first Grammy Award for “Put Your Hand in the Hand of the Man from Galilee” and now her 1975 recording of “No Charge” was a RIAA-certified gold record. She was one of Gospel’s most highly acclaimed artists and had recently been invited to be a guest on a major Hollywood talk show. Needless-to-say, I was a bit starstruck. Not really knowing what to say, I naively asked if she felt that her career had reached its apex and was on the decline. 

From across our table for two at the little restaurant in Durham, she fixed a piercing gaze at me that penetrated my intellectual armor and made me feel genuinely dumb. “Did you say, D E C L I N E?” She then proceeded to advise, perhaps, admonish me sharply that she was nowhere near her destiny in the music industry and beyond. And how right she was! In the ensuing decades, she has won 12 more Grammys, 14 Stellar Awards and 18 Dove Awards. She has garnered TV and movie credits and even has a star on Hollywood Boulevard. She served as an elected member of the Durham City Council and still pastors a beautiful church in Raleigh.

While I have shared this anecdote with you before and wrote about finishing being better than starting just last week, I share it again today because I often need to be reminded as I get older that despite feeling a bit discouraged at times, or having reached a few successful milestones in my life, I still have, as Frost said, “promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep.” I yet have some aspirations to attain, books to write, and lives to touch with the gospel message of hope. Perhaps, you need to be reminded too that you must not be defined solely by past successes, nor should you dwell on past failures. Rather, pursue your dream, “forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead.”  God is not through with you and me yet! Forward thinking only!

Focus Quote: “I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.”

                                                —Philippians 3:14 (NLT)