Song Notes

When I was baptized, a church member gave me a book with this verse hand-inscribed on the inside cover. I’d read it before, but it hadn’t made a huge impression on me. To be honest, “forgetting what is behind” is difficult for me, particularly as a writer. All of our material as writers comes from the past, how can we forget it? The good AND the bad?

…Yet remembering certain things can be terrible. There is something undeniably helpful in forgetting the past, both good and bad. This is still something I am struggling with, and perhaps some of that can be heard in the music. As part of the verse that talks about “straining toward what’s ahead,” the music mimics that feeling, stretching upward (perhaps a bit frenetically), before coming down again.

Bible Verse

(Philippians 3:12)

12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers, 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, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

Lyrics

Not that I’ve already obtained all of this
Or that I’ve already been made perfect,
But I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me,
He took hold of me

Brothers, I do not consider myself to
Have taken hold of it yet, but one thing I do:
I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me,
He took hold of me…

Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what’s ahead
I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God’s called me heavenward in Christ,
Called me heavenward in Christ
He has called me heavenward in Christ

x2