Just Forget It

“Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.” (Isa 43:18-19 AV)

Encouraging words to a nation that will be coming out of captivity into restoration of their home land.  Of course, this event has not happened as at the time of this writing.  These words were penned before Judah went into Babylon.  These words are prophetic.  But encouraging nonetheless.  There is one phrase which we want to consider this morning.  The first sentence is key to living in future victory.  Failure is inevitable.  We will fail God time and time again.  The ability to get beyond it requires we put those failures in the past.  No matter how egregious, we need to forget they ever happened.  To dredge them up time and again only serves to paralyze us into future usefulness for God.

Years ago, I did a very silly thing.  I was trying to impress a female classmate in Junior High and broke my wrist as a result.  My father took us with him to the high school where he taught during the summer recess.  We would help him with projects around the school.  Some were construction or repair projects.  Others were scheduling for the coming school year.  When we needed a break, we would run around that high school and sliding down the banisters was a great activity.  Very dangerous and forbidden.  But we did it anyway.  It was this skill that I wished to show off to a girl that I was sweet on.  I found out the hard way why it was a dangerous thing to do.  Over the side I went and my wrist sustained a small fracture.  The doctor put a half cast on but it didn’t heal quite right.  So, he had to re-break the wrist and put a full cast on it.  Six weeks later, off came the cast.  I was as good as brand new.   If an x-ray was done on my wrist, the doctors could see that it had been broken sometime in the past.  My memories of the event are still vivid.  I remember the itching.  I remember the inconvenience of having a cast.  I remember using the cast in self-defense.  I remember the inconvenience of taking a shower with the cast stuck out the other side of the shower curtain.  I remember the pain in the neck which was the sling.

A couple of years later, I signed up for little league baseball.  My brother and I would ride our bikes to practice and games.  I played outfield and third string pitcher.  It never occurred to me that playing such a game could re-injure my wrist.  I would never make the same mistake again.  Never would I slide down a banister.  In this, it was good that I remembered the past.  But, had I allowed a past mistake dictate all other choices, I would have never learned how to pitch resulting in coaching my youngest into collage baseball.  Had I always been aware of the past injury suffered by taking a risk, then all future choices would have only been the safe ones.  The point is this.  We all fail the LORD.  We all make mistakes.  We all sin.  Some of that sin us horrible.  But we cannot live in the past.  The LORD has forgiven us for these choices and wishes to reconcile.  Not only for the purpose of fellowship.  Equally important, for the purpose of usefulness.  We need to live in the present and for the future.  The past is gone and it needs to remain there.  If the LORD has put it in the past, that is exactly where we need to leave it.