day 612: Forgetting and Forgiving

"...forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you."

We are seldom rewarded at work for forgetting something. It's usually the opposite in that we receive accolades for remembering and being able to pull out a fact or a detail from our memories when no one else can. There is a new book out on how to improve our memory, it's called "Moonwalking with Einstein". I plan to read it as once every ten years or so there will be memory strengthening book that comes out that becomes the one that the business community adopts and starts passing around, etc. Increasing memory skills is a good thing except in one place and that place being the memories that we harbor and can't let go of that block us from being able to forgive well. Forgiving is a big part of being whole in our life with Christ and also an important marker for others who are watching us to see what kind of life this being a believer thing is supposed to be all about. It is hard for others to see God in us if we are not forgiving for to be unforgiving in our nature is to snub our noses at what Jesus did for us and what God gave us in sacrificing His Son for our sins. But to forgive we must first forget.

A fellow teacher in the Sunday School class I teach said that he knows someone who says, "I forgive but I will never forget". That is not true forgiveness. True forgiveness is letting go of the past and moving towards the future. Much of what Paul writes about in Ephesians Chapter 4 is about this and the importance of being future focused and letting the past go. Today, on your job, there is something that needs to be forgotten for good. It's been hung onto for too long and it's time to settle it and move on. From there, there is a person who needs to be forgiven and they need to see that you can do it. Find that person and that topic and see if today, you can't put them both to bed once and for all and move on into a new day and time of better spirit and attitude. It will be worth it!

Reference: Ephesians 4:32 (New Living Testament)