Forward Is a Direction,
Not a Speed

Devotional

Keep Moving Forward

Every image in this passage is pointed forward.

Pressing on, straining toward, running for a prize, awaiting a Savior. There isn’t a single stationary picture anywhere in these ten verses, and that’s the message. The Christian life isn’t a position you take once. It’s a direction you keep walking.

That distinction matters because most of us evaluate ourselves by speed. We ask whether we’re growing fast enough, whether we should be further along by now, and whether the people around us seem to be moving more quickly. Paul never once measures himself that way. He asks only about direction, and he keeps the direction fixed on Christ.

So here’s a question worth being honest about. If someone charted your last two years, would the line be pointed anywhere in particular?

Then hold the two halves of this passage together, because Paul deliberately gives us both. Verses 12 through 16 are about effort, because pressing on and straining forward are strenuous words. Verses 20 and 21 are about waiting, because we eagerly await a Savior who will do the transforming Himself.

Effort and waiting aren’t opposites in the Christian life. You strain forward with everything you have while knowing the finish isn’t something you produce, and both are true at once. A faith with only effort turns into exhaustion, and a faith with only waiting turns into passivity. Paul refuses to hand us either one on its own, and a lot of our frustration comes from picking one and quietly abandoning the other.

Look back at what you wrote on Monday, the one thing behind you and the one thing ahead. Has anything moved this week?

You have ten days left in this journey, and Paul has one instruction for people who feel behind. Keep going. He hadn’t arrived either, and he never once treated that as a reason to slow down. There’s no verse anywhere in this letter telling a discouraged believer to stop until they feel more qualified, and there’s no shortage of verses telling them to keep moving.