"All the commandments which I command thee this day shall ye observe to do, that ye may live, and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the Lord sware unto your fathers. And thou shalt remember _all the way_ which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep His commandments or no." (Ver. 1, 2.)
It is at once refreshing, edifying, and encouraging to look back over the whole course along which the faithful hand of our God has conducted us; to trace His wise and gracious dealings with us; to call to mind His many marvelous interpositions on our behalf; how He delivered us out of this strait and that difficulty; how, ofttimes, when we were at our wits' end, He appeared for our help, and opened the way before us, rebuking our fears and filling our hearts with songs of praise and thanksgiving.
We must not, by any means, confound this delightful exercise with the miserable habit of looking back at _our_ ways, our attainments, our progress, our service, what we have been able to do, even though we are ready to admit, in a general way, that it was only by the grace of God that we were enabled to do any little work for Him. All this only ministers to self-complacency, which is destructive of all true spirituality of mind. Self-retrospection, if we may be allowed to use such a term, is quite as injurious in its moral effect as self-introspection. In short, self-occupation, in any of its multiplied phases, is most pernicious; it is, in so far as it is allowed to operate, the death-blow to fellowship. Any thing that tends to bring self before the mind must be judged and refused, with stern decision; it brings in barrenness, darkness, and feebleness. For a person to sit down to look back at his attainments or his doings, is about as wretched an occupation as any one could engage in. We may be sure it was not to any such thing as this that Moses exhorted the people when he charged them to "remember all the way by which the Lord their God had led them."
We may here recur, for a moment, to the memorable words of the apostle in Philippians iii.--"Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended; but this one thing I do, _forgetting those things which are behind_, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."
Now, the question is, what were the "things" of which the blessed apostle speaks? Did he forget the precious dealings of God with his soul throughout the whole of his wilderness-journey? Impossible!--indeed we have the very fullest and clearest evidence to the contrary. Hear his touching words before Agrippa--"Having therefore obtained help of God, I continue unto this day, witnessing both to small and great." So also, in writing to his beloved son and fellow-laborer, Timothy, he reviews the past, and speaks of the persecutions and afflictions which he had endured; "but," he adds, "out of them all the Lord delivered me." And again, "At my first answer no man stood with me, but all forsook me; I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge. Notwithstanding, the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me; that by me the preaching might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might hear; and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion."
To what then does the apostle refer when he speaks of "forgetting those things which are behind"? We believe he refers to all those things which had no connection with Christ--things in which the heart might rest, and nature might glory--things which might act as weights and hindrances,--all these were to be forgotten in the ardent pursuit of those grand and glorious realities which lay before him. We do not believe that Paul, or any other child of God or servant of Christ, could ever desire to forget a single scene or circumstance in his whole earthly career in any way illustrative of the goodness, the loving-kindness, the tender mercy, the faithfulness of God. On the contrary, we believe it will ever be one of our very sweetest exercises to dwell upon the blessed memory of all our Father's ways with us while passing across the desert, home to our everlasting rest.
"There with what joy reviewing Past conflicts, dangers, fears, Thy hand our foes subduing, And drying all our tears. Our hearts with rapture burning, The path we shall retrace, Where now our souls are learning The riches of Thy grace."