Leadership 44
Most of us are good forgetters. We remember, according to most common statistics, about 3 percent of the things that happen to us and store those in conscious memory. The other 97% we forget. (Some days for me I think it may be 99%!) But normally, our conscious memory stuffs the majority of our life memories and experiences into the storage files of our unconscious basement. Unless that is, you are afflicted with a syndrome called hyperthymestic syndrome… the inability to forget.
Those with this rare condition can recall with great and sometimes painful detail, every moment of their lives. The good, the bad, the really painful and awkward moments of childhood, as well as the pleasant ones of course.
But imagine for a moment the ability to recall the detailed wording of every commercial you ever sat through; every inane TV script, the words of every book, the names of every person you have met… and what they said to you.
Forgetting it seems, may be a gift! In fact, it may sometimes be one of the greatest gifts. There are those things you should never forget but for this article, let’s talk about things we should.
We should forget when someone injures us; when we suffer pain. We should forget when we fail God, ourselves or others. We should forget those moments of not feeling we measure up. We should forget our fearful nights; our nagging insecurities. We should forget when someone asks us to forgive them.
God, though sovereign and omniscient (all-knowing), can choose to forget. He chooses to forget where we have sinned against Him and incurred His wrath. He chooses to forget our failures and our blatant disobedience.
In fact, the Bible gives us a very visual way that God forgets: it says He takes our sins and casts them into the depths of the sea… a place of eternal forgetfulness. And He holds them against us no more.
There’s one thing that needs to remain in that place of remembrance in our minds, however. It needs to stay close to the top of the list of the most important things:
There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.
Romans 8:1
FOR MEDITATION: And I will forgive their wickedness, and I will never again remember their sins no more. Hebrews 8:12
FOR REFLECTION: How many times have you gone “fishing” for sins that God has forgotten? Remember, as Corrie Ten Boom said, that God has placed a “no fishing” sign over those sins!