Forgetting

Not long ago a woman walked up to me and said, “Do you remember me?” Her face looked familiar but I was at a complete loss as to her name or where I had served with her! The Indians have a proverb, “A good memory is fine—but the ability to forget is the true test of greatness.” Obviously the writer was not thinking about forgetting someone’s name unless he knew something we don’t!

Meditation
Isaiah 49:14-16—Zion says, “The LORD has abandoned me; The Lord has forgotten me!” “Can a woman forget her nursing child, or lack compassion for the child of her womb? Even if these forget, yet I will not forget you. Look, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands; your walls are continually before Me.”

Dan was over visiting and shared that his grandmother in an assisted living home forgets each day that she is home and asks, “Do I have a room here?” Truly that is an insightful picture of what can happen to us as we get older. So how blessed we are to commit to memory two things about God:
• He will never forget us. He did not make us to abandon us. He loves us with a permanent love—promising to abide forever with us who choose to trust in Him for our salvation!
• He will forget our sins. Hebrews 8:12 says, “For I will be merciful to their wrongdoing, and I will never again remember their sins.”

As humans, it is easy to forget names yet to remember the injustice committed by another against us. So quick we are to make commitments and then forget to do what we said we would do. We are so unlike God! Os Guinness reminds us in The Call, “Ingratitude and forgetfulness are ultimately moral rather than mental; they are the direct expression of sin.”

Dear Lord, please fortify my mind to retain what will honor you and edify others and let go of what would dishonor You or cause another to stumble. Thank You for never forgetting me, for forgiveness and for not holding my sins against me. Amen

Inspiration
Forgetting in the Divine mind is an attribute, in the human mind it is a defect, consequently God never illustrates His Divine forgetfulness by human pictures, but by pictures taken from His own creation.—Oswald Chambers in Run Today’s Race