English poet, Alexander Pope said, “to err is human; to forgive, divine,” expressing well that forgiveness takes a Christ-likeness to offer, but I wish he had said something about forgetting as well.
I was reminded of this when I encountered a reminder of my past mistakes, failures, sins. I felt certain that I had acknowledged what I had been doing wrong, had asked for forgiveness and had been striving in my daily life to not return to the wrongdoings of my past. Then it was back, staring me in the face like nothing had ever changed. I was blown away, frustrated and disappointed.
When God heals us of our sin, it is a complete and miraculous event. He can take our failures and foibles and redeems them, and us, so fully that we are encapsulated by His forgiveness, and the altering that only He can do in our human hearts and lives. Even to the extent that we completely forget our actions.
But we humans are not divine, and we cannot forget completely.
I was so sure, so confident that God had healed me from those sins. That they were forgiven, erased and forgotten for all time … and that was and is true. What I had missed was that, although I felt transformed, cleansed and redeemed, there still are Earthly consequences to sin, and one of the most pervasive consequences is that others do not forget.
What frustration to have worked so hard at allowing God to change ourselves for the better, only to have someone throw our past mistakes back into our faces. It would feel like our efforts are hopeless.
But our efforts at allowing God to change our lives, our hearts, are never hopeless or meaningless. Every good and broken part of our lives are part of His plan for our life.
Just like the injuries of childhood heal completely, and the pain of them be completely forgotten they still leave scars that stay with us all of our life, and sin leaves lifelong scars too. But like a physical scar from our childhood, that can remind us of the pain of touching a hot stove, the reminders of of our past sins can remind us to continue pursuing right living, and of how very humanly frail we really are.
“For I will forgivetheir wickedness
and will remember their sins no more.”
Jeremiah 31:34
itsawonderfilledlife 