I am He who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins. Isaiah 43:25
Amazing, God forgets our sins.
We are made in God’s image and if God forgets our sins, then we are made to forget about our sins too. Carrying our sins, remembering what we did and what others did to us, does not reflect God’s glory or His intentions.
While on vacation, I read the book Forgetting: The Benefits Of Not Remembering.
One of the fascinating new facts of recent research is that the brain can unwind memories – taking the tension out of them so that while the memory exists, it no longer causes anger or anxiety.
God, help me forget some memories.
Whenever I read a book on the “science of the brain,” it states somewhere that most of what we know about the brain’s function has been learned since the invention of MRI technology. The first MRI was conducted on a human patient on July 3, 1977.
Watching the brain function with an MRI allows visualization of the brain “remembering” and the brain “forgetting.”
To get technical you must use words like pre-frontal cortex, amygdala, hippocampus, and cerebellum. God designed the brain, wrote the Bible with an awareness of all parts of the brain, and gives plenty of insight into health throughout scripture.
The book Forgetting… discusses a healthy brain. An important aspect of a healthy brain is forgetting. Since the brain is the source of our emotions, rationality, and feelings of happiness, to get all of this, the brain needs to forget a few things.
God, help me forget some of my memories about You!
In both the Old and New Testaments, God doesn’t give an anatomy lesson of the brain. He does share one word – a word that summarizes the pattern of living resulting in a healthy brain…
Forgiveness!
Current research shows what the Bible has taught for 5,000 years. A non-forgetting brain gets spastic and uncontrollable with anger. It gets tied to a treadmill of “why,” “let me figure it out,” or “mental videotapes of insults.” It doesn’t stop!
We need a miracle to help us forget!
Forgetting … (the title of the book) exhibits people forgetting by realizing a different perspective. There are chemicals in the brain that fixate memory and other chemicals that relax memory.
Scripture shows that the best method of relaxing is forgiveness. Forgetting through forgiveness releases healing chemicals onto a spastic brain. The learned habit of forgiveness turns off the treadmill.
Our memory is healed of anger. We find peace.
God, help us to forgive!