Nell, a Christian friend of mine who had many times been on mission trips, especially to disaster areas, once said to me that she knew that God had forgiven her for her past, before she had been a believer, but she knew that she had sometimes sinned against God Himself, and so she could not forgive herself. Her sin, whatever it was, weighed upon her conscience, and she could not escape it. No amount of my talking and listening with her ever change her mind, that I could see.

I believe that there must be many people who “hug “ their sins in an embrace of regret and even sorrow, and I realized that I had been one , too, from time to time. The scriptures, though, leave no room for regret or self blame. They make it clear that clothing ourselves in regret is like putting on a heavy armor to resist the Spirit of God from entering and removing the stain: If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and He knows everything. (1 John 3:20)

The apostle John witnessed the resurrected Jesus and knew, as eleven of the disciples did, that God had reversed the monstrous evil of the cross, and that a new day had arrived in the relationship of God and human beings. That which we could not even imagine has occurred, and those who are willing to grasp the hand of the living Christ and drop their armor altogether, can experience this reality even thousands of years after the events.

God’s forgiveness, and His reach into human hearts was displayed even in the Old Testament. The psalmist wrote these words: Whom have I in heaven but you? And beside you I desire nothing on earth. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. (Psalm 73:25) Even before the appearance of Jesus on earth, the psalmist recognized the great power of God that was greater than the failings of our hearts. It is a hope that requires the abandoning of our own selves to receive God’s better Spirit of redemption.

Corrie Ten Boom famously wrote, “God takes our sins and buries them in the deepest part of the sea and then posts a sign: ‘No Fishing!’” We can spend our lives fishing for regrets, or we can give them all to God, who knows us better than we know ourselves; and we have a brother who has opened the way for us to our Father God. He, too, knows everything.

Love in Him,

Prue