Having hit the age of 50, I have been reflecting on the past. It’s amazing how quickly those years have flown by. I think what amazes me most is how old I thought a 50-year-old was when I was 20, and how young I think a 50-year-old is now. I’m sure the same thoughts come from an 80-year-old, though when we look back we see a changed world. Can you remember when the internet was not a part of your life? Do you remember when the new technology was an 8-track tape player? It took me three trips to carry my music collection when I was just out of college and now, that entire collection fits on an IPOD, the size of my palm! As I age, my memory doesn’t seem to work as well as it used to and in some ways, that can be a huge blessing!
Do you remember how difficult adolescence was? Do you remember the pains of broken relationships, the loss of your first love, the sadness of the death of close family members? Yes, I still remember all of those, but not with the same pain that overwhelmed me initially. Yesterday’s devotional emphasized the way that God forgets, specifically in reference to our sin. Why doesn’t He take our memories of that sin away in the same manner that He forgets it?
It’s not for the pain that sin can still cause that God allows us to keep those memories. It’s for the benefits. What benefits could there possibly be from remembering your sin, your failures, your biggest defeats? Through those sins, we should acquire an enormous amount of thankfulness for God’s grace and mercy.
41 “There was a certain creditor who had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. 42 And when they had nothing with which to repay, he freely forgave them both. Tell Me, therefore, which of them will love him more?”
43 Simon answered and said, “I suppose the one whom he forgave more.”
And He said to him, “You have rightly judged.”
Luke 7:41-43
Paul saw himself as the chief sinner on the earth (1 Timothy 1:15). Personally, I think I replaced Paul in that role. Honestly, most of us feel that way. That is the Lord’s way of letting us understand how much He loves us! When I was 20, I was a sinner, but at that time, I didn’t fully appreciate what it meant that Christ died for my sins. That doesn’t mean that 20-year-olds can’t grasp the depth of that forgiveness, but after many years of walking in sin, I have gone from the poorest creature to the wealthiest, all with God’s gift of forgiveness. What does He want in exchange?
Have you ever noticed how God has a way of bringing people into your life who are wallowing in the same sin He delivered you from? That is because through your own stumbling, the Lord has given you an amazing gift of hindsight, and through that hindsight, a wealth of compassion. A great definition of compassion is feeling someone else’s pain, and that certainly is love. Love is what heals us, and we know from 1 John 4 that God is love! The key is to forget the pain of your sinful failures and remember the gift of that burden being removed from your shoulders!
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