Forgiveness and Forgetting

<p>Jill Price was born with the condition of hyperthymesia: the ability to remember in extraordinary detail everything that ever happened to her. She can replay in her mind the exact occurrence of any event she&rsquo;s experienced in her lifetime.</p> <p>A TV show, <em>Unforgettable,</em> was premised on a female police officer with hyperthymesia&mdash;to her a great advantage in trivia games and in solving crimes. For Jill Price however, the condition isn&rsquo;t so much fun. She can&rsquo;t forget the moments of life when she was criticized, experienced loss, or did something she deeply regretted. She replays those scenes in her head over and over again.</p> <p>Our God is omniscient (perhaps a kind of divine hyperthymesia): the Bible tells us that His understanding has no limit. And yet we discover in Isaiah a most reassuring thing: &ldquo;I am he who blots out your transgressions . . . and remembers your sins no more&rdquo; (Isaiah 43:25). The book of Hebrews reinforces this: &ldquo;We have been made holy through . . . Jesus Christ [and our] sins and lawless acts [God] will remember no more&rdquo; (Hebrews 10:10, 17).</p> <p>As we confess our sins to God, we can stop playing them over and over in our minds. We need to let them go, just as God does: &ldquo;Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past&rdquo; (Isaiah 43:18). In His great love, God chooses to not remember our sins against us. Let&rsquo;s remember <em>that.</em></p>