Read
Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead…
Philippians 3:13
Reflect
Growing up in Florida, I always took the name “Disney” for granted. Walt Disney World was not far away, and we usually went there at least once a year. My Dad’s connections as a newspaper publisher actually landed us preview passes to one of the media preview days prior to the park’s opening in October 1971. I just thought it was cool that we were going to see Mickey Mouse; I didn’t realize it was a rare privilege other kids weren’t getting.
Since then, I – like pretty much every other human being in Western civilization — have been exposed to the Disney name almost more than my own. I’ve been to Walt Disney World dozens of times, seen every Disney movie ever made (more than once), watched shows on the Disney Channel, and shopped in the Disney Store. Oh yeah, I also have Disney Plus so that I can watch The Mandalorian and Agatha All Along. Disney is clearly a household name.
But over the years, I’ve studied up a little bit on the man who made the name famous – Walt Disney himself. He’s one of the people I’ve admired most. He’s viewed as an incredibly successful man, but he had his share of heartbreak and failures along the way. Walt’s first company, Laugh-O-Gram Studios, lost its major financial backer and he had to file for bankruptcy. He lost one of his most beloved characters – “Oswald the Lucky Rabbit” – in an intellectual property battle with Universal Pictures. His wife suffered several miscarriages, and Walt had a nervous breakdown in 1931.
Today is a red-letter day in the history of Walt Disney because it’s the anniversary of the founding of the Walt Disney Company in 1923. Somehow, in the midst of every failure, Walt kept moving forward. He has dozens of inspirational quotes – there are even several books that focus on his wisdom, like “The Quotable Walt Disney.” But my all-time favorite Walt-ism is this gem:
“Around here we don’t look backwards for very long. We keep moving forward, opening up new doors and doing new things, because we’re curious … and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.”
I love that mindset because it recognizes that failure isn’t the end — it’s just a step in our journey toward success. And it’s completely biblical. Throughout the Bible, the Lord reminds us to stop focusing on things that happened in our past and to keep looking ahead.
- “But Lot’s wife, behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.” (Genesis 19:26)
- “Say not, ‘Why were the former days better than these?’ For it is not from wisdom that you ask this.” (Ecclesiastes 7:10)
- “Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” (Isaiah 43:18-19)
- Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9:62)
We can always learn from history, and we should learn from our mistakes. But it’s impossible to move ahead in life when we’re continually looking behind ourselves, either worrying about what might be back there or wishing that things could be as good as they used to be. We have to live in the now and plan for the future that holds our eventual destination. Think about Walt – if he had spent all of his time fighting over Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and bemoaning the loss of that character, he never would have had the time to develop Mickey Mouse.
If you’ve had failures and disappointments in your past, you’re in good company. I could probably fill volumes with all of the mistakes – both innocent and foolish – that I’ve made over the years. I wish that I had always looked ahead – the way Walt did and the way the Bible instructs us to do – to focus on doing better in the future. But today is the day that you and I can begin to separate ourselves from those mistakes and to look to what the Lord has for us in the days ahead. Close the doors to the things that didn’t go so well and open the new ones that lead you to the brighter future that the Lord has planned.
Reflection copyright © 2024 Doug DeBolt.
