This week’s post is from our Worship Director, Joshua Barella. I’m sure you will be blessed.
--John Beeson
Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old (Is. 43:18).
We've just closed the book on our first (and God-willing not our last!) boys’ trip, replete with lakefront paddleboats, water slides, roller coasters, hotel swimming pools, and even a 140 mph stint in a Porsche 911 on the 101, and boy was it a whirlwind. I wouldn't trade the smiles, the laughter, the tears for anything.
Looking back...
As we wrapped up our five-day jaunt in a cozy extended-stay just inside Scottsdale suburbia I was on the verge of mental and physical collapse, whereas the boys, as the Energizer Bunny proffered, just kept going and going and going. I couldn't keep up. In fact I didn't. Their enthusiasm met my exhaustion. I raised my voice at the boys, and in an instant, their elation turned to fear and shame.
Scientists argue that our brains have adopted a defense mechanism called the 'negativity bias' to help us avoid danger or avoid repeating past blunders. The brain thus prioritizes threatening or painful memories over joyous ones as a way to deploy this mechanism. As I stood in that hotel room, irate, heart beating, the looks on my son's faces turned my blood cold.
Would this be what they remembered most?
After we'd showered and cleaned up and readied for bed I sat them down and we talked about what had happened. I asked the boys if they would be forthcoming with me in their telling of three things: 1. What they enjoyed most about our vacation; 2. What scared them the most or what they liked least; and 3. What were they sorry about and wished didn't happen.
I was surprised not to hear anything about my outburst. The boys associated nothing irksome with what had happened a little under an hour before. They recounted things like playing hide-and-seek in the cabin, the near-drownings in the wave pool at the water park, the growl of the Porsche's motor as the tachometer climbed, and the times they were disobedient or negligent.
Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old.
I bundled my boys up into a big hug and told them how much fun I'd had with them. I shared with them that I loved them as Jesus loves them. I told them that there was no way to earn my love. This is simply how grace works. I put them to bed, and I quietly thanked God as I lay there in the dark for the gift he had given me in the form of this grand adventure. I thanked God that although it felt as though I'd been on the road non-stop, gotten little sleep, managed a horrible diet, and made some missteps, we were still here. We were still together. We were still family. And love and mercy and grace abounded between us.
Ofttimes the sins of the past muddy the pleasures of the present. And just as Isaiah reminded Israel of God's promise to his chosen people: to help them lift their eyes from the dusty aftermath of their proclivities, he calls us all to do this daily. As the pure and undefiled love he offers keeps no record of wrongdoings, no log of grievances with which to punish you for (1 Cor. 13:5), we too are to adopt this deportment. It's true that we will all come before the judgment seat of God. We will all account for what we have done in this life. But Jesus, seated at the right hand of the Father, will in that moment, step down from his throne to wipe away your tears and remind you that your slate is clean, that he has dismissed your works of evil and granted you freedom and safe passage to serener shores.
He has overridden what your brain has hard-wired.
Let this truth saturate your heart so that in the fruits of your imperfection you won't fall prey to the lies of this world. There is something greater than doubt: hope. There is something greater than fear: courage. There is something greater than mourning: joy.
Choose to live in the newness of your salvation today and always. Do not concede power over to the enemy in remembering your sins of old. God did not save you by way of the blood of his Son to leave you as you were. You have been undone and reborn. So live, child. Rise and behold what he has done, what he is doing, and he will always do for you.
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Photo by dianne clifford on Unsplash