Psalm 103:3 – Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases;
It’s against God’s nature to remember forgiven sins . . .
He who is perfect love cannot hold grudges. If he does, then he isn’t perfect love. And if he isn’t perfect love, you might as well put this book down and go fishing, because both of us are chasing fairy tales.
But I believe in his loving forgetfulness. And I believe he has a graciously terrible memory.
Sin, pain, or sorrow can blind us to God’s present working and, occasionally, even the miraculous ways he’s worked in our lives in the past. And while we might argue with our journal or with our memory, God’s work in redemptive history is unassailable. David helps us by reminding himself (and us) of God’s irrevocable work for his people in history:
David takes us (and himself) back to the most pivotal event he can think of. And it’s not in the valley of Elah with three smooth stones in his hand and a sling by his side. In fact, it’s not even an event from his lifetime.
Instead, David brings us back to Sinai. He brings us back to the moment when the LORD worked powerfully and victoriously and decisively to redeem his people out of Egyptian bondage. He brings us back to the moments when God demonstrated his covenant-keeping love.
In the fight to command our souls to bless the Lord, we not only call to mind the things in general that are true about the LORD, we follow David’s example to get our arms around concrete, unassailable realities of his work in redemptive history. We lift our gaze above our own circumstances and fix it upon the LORD’s acts of provision and deliverance in the past. We tell ourselves what God has done — in history, for us.
