I'm thinking about the theme of forgetting. Why? Because it's 8:30 pm on a Tuesday evening and I've realized I've forgotten to write and send a Covenant Weekly today. I forget so easily despite having so many tools at my disposal to help me remember. I use my smartphone and a digital calendar to try to remember dates, events, and obligations. I ask my kids and wife to help me remember things. Despite alarms, timers, and old-school sticky notes I still find myself forgetting. I forget so often that sometimes when I haven't forgotten I panic because I feel like I've forgotten what I forgot!!
I take some measure of consolation in that the Bible talks about God forgetting, too. No. He doesn't forget as I do, but Hebrews does talk about him forgetting.
I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts.
I will be their God, and they will be my people.
No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’
because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest.
For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.
What a great hope and a great promise! We have a God who forgives and forgets our sins, our mistakes, our flaws, and our errors. We can take comfort in his grace and lean into him to truly know him. Even when I forget this truth, his love overcomes my forgetfulness.
And that reminds me of something God doesn't forget - his children. Isaiah, writing to the Old Covenant people, shares God's words for all of his children.
Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne?
(This is a rhetorical question! Despite some examples to the contrary, the answer to this question is an emphatic, "NO!")
Though she may forget,
(that is to say . . . even if the unthinkable should happen, the following statement remains true)
I [God] will not forget you!
I pray you will go through this week reminded of what we've been reading about in (Re)union. God is with you - God is for you. He forgives and forgets your sin and he will not and has not forgotten you.
You.
Are.
Loved.