A
thought by Mark Batterson, (2015-10-06) from his book, If: Trading Your If Only Regrets for God's What If Possibilities (Kindle
Location 916). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. (Click
on the title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.)
That
is so true, isn’t it? Those mistakes
seem to haunt us, don’t they?
Mark
says, “That’s why it’s harder to forgive ourselves than it is to receive God’s
forgiveness. We tend to remember what we should forget and forget what we
should remember.”
He
goes on, “That inability to forget the sin we’ve confessed is part of our sin
nature itself. The fall fractured the image of God in us, including in the
amygdala. That’s the part of the brain responsible for storing emotional
memories. The strength of the memory is dictated by the strength of the
emotion. We quickly forget the moments that don’t make a blip on our emotional
radar. But strong emotions, like shame, take sinful snapshots and poster-size
them. They get blown out of proportion in the darkroom of the mind.”
Now
if this is a problem for you remember this, “One of our fundamental problems is
living as if Christ is still nailed to the cross. He’s not. He’s seated at the
right hand of the Father, in power and glory. The only thing nailed to the
cross is our sin. And once your sin is nailed, it’s nailed.”
It
is nailed. As you have confessed it it
has been taken care of. It is gone. Just thank God for his forgiveness and go
on.
Now if it is a mistake with no sin attached go back and forgive yourself
specifically for what you did and learn the lesson from it. You’re not perfect. You blew it.
Accept that. You may have to forgive
yourself over and over but eventually the pain from it will be gone and you
will be able to move forward. The key is
to get past the emotion and the shame and move forward. Accept the fact that you are not perfect,
forgive yourself, learn the lesson, determine to not do it again and then move
forward.
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