“For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more.” – Hebrews 8:12 (NIV)
This morning, my son did something that made me cringe as a parent. It wasn’t one of those “innocent” things that kids do not really knowing what they are doing. No, this was a case where he knows the rules and simply wanted to destroy something. He wanted to antagonize his older sister, to show her that he could push her buttons and get to her.
Now, don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t that big a deal in the big picture – he wrote all over an article about a concert she’d attended a few days ago. The situation was handled, he was dealt with, and we’ve got a new copy of the article on the way. But, I still felt responsible…
After all, he is someone my wife and I created together, and we’re supposed to be instilling a set of values that will help him grow into a good person (and frankly, he is already well on his way – he’s a pretty special kid!). I don’t know where he got the idea to do what he did this morning, but I can say that this morning was anything but a proud moment. Correcting a child is hard; he was clearly upset when he got out of the car this morning, and I spent some amount of time kind of feeling like a failure. I guess you could say we were both miserable.
As I was walking to his school this afternoon to pick him up, I found myself processing what happened this morning and what I would say to him when I saw him. Then, the verse at the top of this blog struck me. Here’s why…
I firmly believe that God has given us the gift of children so we can better understand the relationship between Him and us. We are his creations. Kids are “our” creations. We don’t do things that honor God and His plan for us. Kids have a way of choosing to do things that hardly honor their parents at times.
What I realized is this – I would rather we just forget that this morning ever happened and start fresh. I just wanted to tell him how much I loved him and how proud I was of the good things he does. That what happened happened, and that we were just going to focus on having a great rest of the day.
It seems to me that that’s how our Heavenly Father feels about us when we sin. Those can’t be proud moments for our Creator, but it’s important to know that He doesn’t WANT to remember the times we screw up. Think about it, what kind of loving God would want to keep track of every screw up we’ve ever made anyway?
We are His precious creations; He ONLY wants to remember the good things we do to honor Him and bring His Kingdom to Earth. If we sin 10 times in a day and we “do good” only three, God wants to look at it like the score is 3-0 “good guys”. When we repent, this is exactly what happens.
Forgiveness is a great gift of God; I thank Him every day for his promise to forgive and forget. It is a model we would do well to emulate with our kids…