Remembering to forget
Dr William Sangster was a great English Methodist preacher of last century, of whom it was said that he moved as easily among kings and princes as he did among the inhabitants of slum areas who flocked to hear him preach. There is a story that recalls how one year he was addressing Christmas cards (yes, it’s almost that time again!), when a visitor was surprised to notice that he was planning to send one to a man who had attacked Sangster only the previous year.
“Surely you’re not sending a greeting to him,” the man said.
“Why not?” asked Sangster.
“But you remember,” the guest began. “Eighteen months ago…”
Sangster could remember what the man had done to him, but he could also remember his resolve to put it out of his mind: “It was a thing I would remember to forget.” And that’s what he did (from Warren Wiersbe, On Being a Servant of God).
When God forgives our sins, and so forgets them (for example, Hebrews 10:17, “Their sins … I will remember no more”), it’s not that he can’t remember us ever doing them; after all, God knows everything and forgets nothing. Rather, he chooses not to hold them against us, and not to act against us because of them. He remembers to forget. Similarly, when we forgive others, we are choosing to do the same – remembering to forget.