The Apostle Paul writes, “I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead” (Phil 3:13 CSB). As I consider Paul’s words in his letter to the Philippian congregants, I can’t help but feel a tug to do exactly the same, forgetting what is behind to obtain Christ. In the same breath, however, I can only imagine how hard it was for Paul to process setting aside his ethnic and religious identity to cling onto Christ.
Ethnically, I am Hmong. I was born and raised in Colorado. My family’s journey to America began when the United States was engaged in a war with Vietnam in the 1960s-70s. During this war, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency actively recruited Hmong men and boys to fight a secret war in Laos. My grandfather was one of the recruits. He did his military training in Thailand and as a captain fought under the supervision and leadership of General Vang Pao. The Hmong soldiers were recruited to rescue American pilots and block supplies headed south Vietnam on the Ho Chi Minh trail. When the war was over and the U.S. withdrew, Hmong families like mine were considered a danger to the communist Laotian government and therefore fled. Unfortunately, my grandfather died in a plane crash with two American pilots and some of his fellow soldiers on one of their missions. This left my dad fatherless and my grandma to be a war veteran widow. With no clear leadership in our household at the time and fear of persecution, my family fled to Thailand as refugees and decided to come to America for a better future.
Growing up I would hear bits and pieces of my family’s history and it shaped my work ethic and outlook on life. Before I was born, my family was already Christian and so I grew up in the church. Like Timothy, my grandmother led me to the Lord and discipled me in reading and trusting God’s Word as the sole authority and rule of my life. Growing up I was curious about our past and how things would have turned out if my grandfather was still alive. I remember asking my grandmother if she was mad at the results of the war and more specifically if she was mad at the U.S. for being one of the reasons she lost everything that she owned. I also asked her if we would still be Christians if my grandfather was alive. Her response to those questions was, “I don’t know but I am thankful and I trust that God wanted us here because He guided us here.” I remember hearing that response and not fully understanding it. How can she be grateful even with all the horrible things she’s experienced?
If I could go back and have a conversation with the Apostle Paul, I would want to ask similar questions. How can he leave behind his zealous, Jewish, nationalistic, Hellenistic, Roman upbringing that defined and made him who he was? Was it worth it?
As I think about God’s calling on my life to be a pastor for a multigenerational Hmong-American congregation along with my family’s skirmish past, I honestly cannot say that it was worth it. If someone were to offer me my position here at the state convention at the expense of my dad’s fatherless experience and my grandmother’s suffering and loss, I honestly cannot say. Let me be clear, I am not saying that I am not grateful to be here in America. In fact, I am grateful to be an American and have rights and freedoms. I feel relatively safe and comfortable. I am grateful that my kids and future family will get to have these same things. I do not apologize for the opportunities that this country has given me and my family. I am thankful.
In this passage, however, I don’t think Paul is calling us to exchange our past for our future or do a mindless exercise of pretending that our past did not happen. I don’t believe Paul is saying that our past experience does not hold any weight or does not matter within reason and context. I believe Paul is helping us to healthily detach ourselves from things that define us so that we can mature in Christ.
Our past, whether good or bad, can cause us to lose sight of God’s purpose in our lives. My family’s history and past suffering shaped me to be a hard-working Hmong American seeking success in medicine and a comfortable life here in America. But in Christ, I can forget that horrible war-torn past of my family’s suffering and my aspirations to be a physician and grab hold of God’s calling on my life to be a pastor.
Life and ministry reflection is a critical part of our Christian maturity and growth as we seek to follow and be faithful to Christ. Christ helps us to reimagine our past and gives us meaning to those experiences as He calls us forward to be sent out. Instead of our experiences ultimately defining us, they become avenues by which we connect with Jesus and others.
If we are to continue in the work of Christ, in being sent out into the world there are three things that we ought to hold true as we process our past, to forget what lies behind so we can reach forward to what is ahead.
1. God is in control
One thing I wrestled with for a long time was, “am I just a product of my environment and the powers at play?” As I reflect on my family’s past, I can’t help but admit the complex layers of the war and conflict that my family had no control over, such as the countries and its leaders, the underlying political agendas, the hundreds of thousands of lives loss, and the inevitable genocide of my people. How was God in control? Is God in control? Though there was much sorrow and doubts about my family’s past, I was surprised to find fruits of joy and gratitude. In such a broken world and such a past as theirs, I could not imagine these kinds of fruits in their lives. My grandmother and father admit; the past was not easy, but they confessed that God had a better plan for them because of the future that was unfolding before them. As my Sunday school teacher always says, “If you want to know what God is up to, you just need to look up.”
Jesus came into the world in a particular time, place, and culture. God demonstrated his power and sovereignty by orchestrating and accomplishing redemption and reconciliation even in the midst of a political conflict, the oppression of the Jews, the crooked leaders who twisted God’s Word, and more. Jesus’ healing and compassion ministry for the suffering, displaced, and marginalized tells me God cares for those who suffered like my family and He has a plan for them. God is in control, and He intimately cares about us. His power and control is just unfolding.
2. Jesus goes with us
When God saved my grandmother, she reflected with Christ as her lens and saw how He was there every step of the way even as a widow and single mother. That had a tremendous impact on how I viewed God theologically and personally. Sometimes finding out how much control we don’t have in the world releases us to a better reality, Jesus goes with us. My father tells of a story of crossing the Mekong Delta with a group on a boat to get into Thailand. Having no money, he recognized that he may need to ask for mercy or plead with someone on their boat to pay his fare. In getting off the boat, he remembers not being asked for any payment, rather the boat person said your fares are taken care of. This experience in his life not only helped him to see that Jesus was with him and goes before him, but to also understand the glories of the gospel that Jesus paid it all. In fact, the condition Jesus sends out His disciples in commissioning them is companionship, “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matt 28:20, CSB).
3. There is joy at the end
The author of Hebrews writes, “For the joy lay before him he endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb 12:2, CSB). It gives me great encouragement, that Christ endured the cross for the joys of reconciling sinful people to a holy God. As a descendant of a Hmong migrant, I want to share that with Christ I am more curious about my future than I am discouraged about my past. Though I still wonder from time to time what life would have been like if there was no conflict or struggle, I can see how God was preparing me to be sent for His glory.
Chimmoua Lee is the Communications Manager of the Colorado Baptists.
