In my last post, I wrote about the good news that God is a God who remembers. Today I'm being haunted by memory. Nearly two and a half years ago some folks wrote a painful document in which they attacked me by name and several others anonymously by association. In my opinion it was a scathing, vindictive, subversive attack, intended to cause personal harm and to inflict extreme pain.
But today, as I've been sitting in my quiet office long before others will arrive for classes and worship, I've been haunted by my memory of those days. I re-skimmed the 18 pages this morning for the first time in probably two years. (Whether a good idea or not, I could not resist the siren call of the file.) I'm still thankful for the godly man who called me to say, "We need to get together and talk." A couple had approached him with the document and attempted to turn him against me. He, in an amazingly grace-filled and humble posture, approached me to talk to me about the document, his conversation, and what I really thought, believed, and was trying to accomplish in my ministry at LO. I continue to thank God for this man and his choice to come to me.
I'd be lying if I tried to say that those events haven't impacted and affected me. My family and I will never be the same. The experience haunts us and affects our ability to trust others. (It was people we had trusted most who wrote the piece.) The scars and wounds of those days will continue to live with us, though we trust that the resurrection power of God will somehow bring life even to this.
Today memory is my enemy.... Yet, I've boasted that God's remembering is gospel.
So, today I'm reminded that the Christian faith tends to constantly navigate and the balance extremes. In nearly all theological topics, the true place of faith is found in the tension of the middle. Today, I'm reminded that the promise that God is a God who remembers must be held in tension with the promise that God is a God who forgets.
"The former things shall not be remembered." "I will remember your sins no more." "As far as the east is from the west." What promises! Thanks be to God for his indescribable amnesia!
God remembers... GOOD NEWS! God forgets... GOOD NEWS!
But as with most theological topics, we tend to gravitate toward one pole or the other. When you think about God at this point in your life, which image of God gives you more solace, encouragement, and strength: the God who remembers or the God who forgets? Why?
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