Forgive And Forget

How many times have you heard the phrase forgive and forget? Nowhere in the Bible are we commanded to forgive and forget. We tell ourselves that we must forgive someone and then do our best to forget the hurt. In the natural, it is impossible to forget the offense. Not only can the wound be emotional, it can leave us with a daily physical scar that makes forgetting virtually impossible.

Rather than trying to forgive and forget, we are actually told to forgive and REMEMBER. The Bible says, “Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.” When we forgive, it is imperative to REMEMBER God’s goodness and far-reaching mercy that none of us deserve. Here is the beautiful part…it is in the remembering that God begins the process in our hearts of forgetting. It is not that we automatically lose the memory of what happened, BUT the authority and power it once held over us is stripped.

Forgetting happens when you remember.
You can either remember the hurt inflicted ON you, or you can remember God’s grace TO you.
You cannot change what happened yesterday, but you CAN change how you move into your tomorrow. Unfortunately, God does not equip us with the strength to carry resentment into the future. It is a heavy weight and holds us back from WHAT we are called to do and WHO we are called to be.

Practically speaking, ask yourself, what are you remembering most?
The offense?
Or God’s goodness?
You will know the answer because if you are remembering the offense, your heart will feel heavy.
Yet, if you are remembering God’s grace and goodness, His peace will be your guide.