Dear Amy,
What is even harder than forgiving those whose sin against us is breathtakingly heinous? Here’s what: forgiving ourselves.
It could be said that part of growing up is having to learn to live with the consequences of one’s own mistakes, consequences which can be far-reaching indeed. But learning to live with and forgiving are quite different.
Mistakes and wilful sins are also quite different. But when all the confessing and repenting is done, the endpoint may be the same: agonizing regret over the life that has been lost, what was and is no longer, or what was once hoped for but never came to be.
Let us remind ourselves why Jesus came.
I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
― John 10:10b
But how can those grieving over such a loss experience this?
Firstly we must repudiate any suggestion that the rescued life is in any sense second class.
Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns?
― Romans 8:33-34a
Me? Is it me that condemns? Is it me that contradicts the Lord of all creation over his declaration of my righteousness in Christ? What am I thinking? Who am I to think that my own judgment is the one that matters?
And secondly there is this.
This is what the LORD says …
“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.”
― Isaiah 43:16, 18-19
In the wasteland which is my life, the Lord is doing a new thing, which is springing up, even now. Streams of living water. A way in the desert.
Longing for what is past is incongruous. The lesson of history is that the Lord does not go back. What is lost is ultimately no loss. It has become a shrivelled, dead thing. There is a new thing springing up which is alive and exciting. Joseph experienced this. Job experienced it, finally⸺the goodness and kindness and overflowing generosity of the Lord, who does not disappoint.
And so, this is how I can forgive myself and let go of the past. I surrender, Lord, not only to your plans and purposes for my life, but to your declaration that I am a new creation in Christ. The old is gone, the new is come, and I stand before you in Christ’s righteousness! Hallelujah!
Forget the former things, Amy, and see the new thing that the Lord is doing! 🙏