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A Page Borrowed From My Daily Devotions
Come now, let us argue it out, says the Lord; though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be like snow… Isaiah 1:18
We’ve seen a lot of snow this winter. From the Pacific Northwest to the Midwest to the Northeast the winds have blown and the snow has blanketed the earth. One of the aspects of snow that gets lost in this kind of winter is its ability to cover a multitude of earthly blemishes.
In our Association Home the driveway leads to a three car garage. The entry to the drive juts to the left at an angle and then straightens out to allow for entry into that third bay. The problem is that the first time I backed out of that third slot in the rain, I misjudged where the angle met the driveway entrance. I left a bit of tire-torn sod in my wake. For weeks that piece of upturned sod was a glaring reminder of my lack of judgment.
Until the snow came. The first snow arrived with an inch or two and that blotch on my lawn was gone. There was no difference between the reminder of my driving inadequacies and the rest of my lawn. In its place was pristine white… until I slid over the same spot because of the ice that had built up. (Honestly, this time it wasn’t my fault!)
God’s promise is for that kind of coverage for our miscalculations, shortcomings and our flagrant sins. Apparently God means it: if we will have it out with God, own our stuff and come clean, God simply covers it with a blanket of forgetting love.
I don’t know how God can do it. I can’t. It’s not that I won’t forgive. I’ve had lots of practice at that. It’s that no matter how much I try to cover the transgressions of others with forgetting love, I still remember. The sin is so easily brought to mind. It just has less and less emotional impact on me.
I am grateful for this distinction between God and I. I trust that the prophet’s words are God’s Word… and God always keeps his word.
But this New Year I’m going to try to close the gap between this wonderful attribute of God and my persistent remembering. I just don’t want to carry the last year – or years before! – of hurt and anger. And memory is one way to hang onto it. I’m going to practice a bit of holy forgetfulness – and I’d like you to join me. When a memory of hurt comes up and you’ve forgiven it – refuse to acknowledge it. Let’s see what God can do with our prayerfully insistent forgetting.
Thank you, Lord, for your forgiving forgetfulness. Help me to grow into it more this year than ever before. Amen
Mike Foss is the senior pastor of St. Mark Lutheran Church in West Des Moines, IA.
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