Forget

Today I learned a few things that were unexpected.  Things about love, about trust, about forgiveness.  About surrendering.  About feeling helpless.  About feeling hopeless.  About wanting to cry, wanting to fight, and wanting to give up.

It's hard to start a post like this, but let's begin with something very basic.  --> My Mom.  I love her.  She's the strongest, most sensitive, most unwavering person I know.  And she doesn't give up.  She fights for Jesus every day of her life.  She grows in His goodness, mercy, and peace.  Her life isn't easy, but she makes mine easy.  Her days aren't always fun or enjoyable, but she does everything to make mine that way.  She has laid down her life for me.  What else can I say?  There's more behind this than I can share, but her heart is constantly waging a war for the truth of Jesus.  I know God warns us as believers that a life of Christ will be filled with suffering and pain, and yet God promises to deliver us.  And I have seen that clearly with my mom.  So this is a tribute to her.  God bless you Mommy.

I had a long talk with my mom today.  About the past, about the present, about the future.  It was one of those good talks about life, about things that you don't really want to say or hear, but that are good to be spoken and heard all the same.  Her biggest piece of advice to me in everything we talked about was to follow Jesus.  To know Jesus.  Yes.  I've heard that all my life, but today I thought about it a little deeper.

Tonight my mom and I went to a small church life group, where several families got together at one of their houses and held a Bible study.  Scott, a guy from our church who helps lead a Healing Prayer service that my mom often attends, invited her to come to this Bible study, so my mom and I decided to go check it out.  It was a wonderful group of people... we eat, sang songs, read the word, and discussed what was on our hearts.  There was one thing that really stuck out to me tonight that I feel God laid on my heart.  Haha, be prepared for a sermon, but one that I much needed today… and these are my thoughts spoken from the heart.

We read 1 Corinthians 13.  I'm sure a lot of you are familar with this passage, but it's good to read again anyway! :)

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

I've highlighted that parts that I've really thought about tonight.  But first, here's another verse that needs to be read.

1 John 4:8

Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

So, God = love.  So, let's translate this with the parts I’ve highlighted.

God is patient.  Often I feel like I can handle life… I’m self-sufficient, I’ve got things down and under control.  I rely on myself for things to be okay.  But when we read and discussed how God is patient, God put this thought into my heart and made me share it with the others.  I am impatient with God when I don’t TRUST Him.  I begin to take things into my own hands and become self-reliance instead of trusting in His perfect timing and plan.  And I began to realize how guilty I am of this every day. 

I am nothing without God.  Yet God is patient.  God is love.  And without love, I am nothing. 

God never fails.  God is faithful.  He doesn’t give up on me.  He doesn’t turn away in disgust because we failed.  No.  God will never turn His back on us.  He never fails.  And we should never fail others.

God keeps no record of wrongs.  This was the biggest thing that I struck me today.  God doesn’t hold anything that we confess and repent of against us.  In fact, He has removed our sins as far as the east is from the west, right?  Right.  But this is what blew my mind away.  Ready??  GOD FORGETS OUR SINS AFTER FORGIVENESS.  He forgets.  He doesn’t remember.  He doesn’t hang it over our heads.  God – who’s perfectly good – doesn’t have a list of our wrongdoings.  Our sins are gone.  Gone.  Forever.  Wow.

So what does this mean for me?  It means that anything anyone does against me, I must forgive, and then forget.  Forever.  Never keep a record of wrongs.  Against anybody.  Ugh, this is so hard.  Especially when I started thinking about the people I shouldn’t be holding grudges against.  But it’s so easy to keep a record of wrongs.  And yet God says LET IT GO. 

Let it go Cassie. 

Forgive.

And forget.