ARE FORGIVING AND FORGETTINGÂ REQUIRED?
âIâd forget my head if it wasnât attached.â
âI forget whether it was on the right hand or the left.â
âI forget where I put my wallet.â
âI forget why I came in hereâŚâ
We have probably all âforgottenâ something important at one time or another. But many of us would like to forget a few things: that awkward first recital; throwing up in public; falling, over nothing; not noticing the back of your dress getting caught in your panty hoseâuntil you leave the bathroom; finding your pants zipper was down-after your presentation to the boss.Â
All VERY good things to forget!
What about pain and disappointment?
What about forgetting the deep hurt of betrayal, broken promises, the life taken by a drunk driver, paralysis caused by that âmistakeâ in surgery, destroyed property, stolen treasuresâhow do we forget these? Can we?
âForgive and forgetâ is a trite and overworked phrase that has been and probably is uttered by a few million well meaning folks every. single. day. You may have said it; I think I have in the past.
Are forgiving and forgetting biblical?
Yes and no. This is what Iâve come to understand and believe about forgiving and forgetting:
We are commanded by God to forgive. Matthew 6:14 says, in part, ââŚif you do not forgive men their sins, your Father in heaven will not forgive your sins.â Again, âBear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.â (Colossians 3:13) It seems clear to me that God is serious about forgiveness.Â
On the other hand, I do not find a biblical imperative for us to forget. There are many scriptures in which we are told not to forget God, His commands and His faithfulness. There is even scripture affirming that God has forgotten our sin (Psalm 130:12). But I cannot find a scripture that tells us to forget âthose who trespass against us,â only to forgive them.
Who we are is where weâve been and what happened to us there.
What we experience on lifeâs journey affects us profoundly. To forget ANY part of that journey would be to deny that part of our existence. For good or ill, what others have inflicted on us has, in part, resulted in who we are. To be told to forget denigrates the importance of those things that have shaped us. Can we honestly expect a father to forget that it was a babysitterâs momentary loss of focus that caused his child to drown in the pool? Do we really believe a woman will forget that she walked in on her husband in bed with another woman? Can survivors forget their loved one took his own life leaving them with questions that wonât be answered on this side of eternity?
I think our social imperative to forgive AND forget is wrong.
This was made clear to me a few years ago when I read the story in John 20:24-28Â of Thomas (you know, the disciple that doubted the resurrection). Two things stood out as very important in this story:
First, Thomas didnât believe the others when they told Him Jesus was alive. So he told everyone his own criteria for proof: he would believe if he could see the nail marks in Jesusâ hands and place his hand in Jesusâ side. Why did he require this proof? Because he knew these things had happened to Jesus. He believed he would believe when he saw the evidence of what he knew to be true.
Second, Jesus appeared to Thomas and allowed him to secure his evidence. Thomas saw the nail prints. He placed his hand in the dent in Jesusâ side left by the soldierâs spear. Thomas saw the scars on his Lord.Â
The sin that Jesus was willing to bear, took Him to the cross where nails were pounded into His battered and already bleeding hands and feet. Once there, after an agonizing death, a spear stabbed Him to insure He was dead.
Thomas didnât see the wounds that day in the upper room. He saw the result of those woundsâthe scars that remained. Physical wounds will eventually healâbut most all leave scars. The same is true of emotional wounds.
If our Lord rose and left a tomb empty, carrying the scars of our sin; is it too unreasonable to believe that we will always carry ours?
Scars are the things that prove to us that something significant has happened to us. Whether they are physical or emotional, they remain as evidence. If our Lord can carry His scars, the evidence of what had happened to Him, then why canât we carry ours?
Forgetting isnât biblical. But we donât have to live a scarred life, trying to forget. Â We must give our pain to Him first, forgive second and know that always that He is with us, understands us and feels with us. Heâs been there.
Isaiah 43:18 Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. referes to events of the captivity, not anotherâs sin against the individual
Isaiah 53:4 refers t Jerusalem as a barren woman who will forget her childlessness and as a widow who will forget her state, after God restores.
Phil 3:13 âŚforgettin what is behind (past) and straining toward what is aheadâŚ











