One man said concerning his wife, “My wife has a terrible memory. She never forgets anything.” Another one said, “Every time we argue my wife gets historical.” His friend said, “No, you mean hysterical.” He said, “No, historical. She always brings up the past.” Learning how to forget is important in getting on with being what God wants you to be.
Playwright Thornton Wilder said, “We ought not to spend too much time in our personal past. I have learned to erase as I go along.” Some of you need to have a better eraser in life. Things happened in the past. You got disappointed in other people. You’ve let that disappointment be brought into the present to the point that it has hindered your progress in the Christian life. You need to erase that. And you need to keep on erasing as you go along.
One of my favorite sports figures is John Wooden, who was at one time the head basketball coach at UCLA. After he had won his ninth national championship in ten years, someone asked him what he was going to do next year. He said, “Next year we are going to start all over as though we had never done anything before. Forget the past. You know last year’s championship doesn’t help you one bit this year. You’ve got to go out and play every game, win every game, and you must play to your best and you can’t rest on your laurels.”
It doesn’t matter how good of a job you did in your Sunday school class last year. It doesn’t matter how much time you spent in Bible reading and prayer last year, or how many people you won to Christ last year. You’ve got to forget the past.