When God forgets...

Doesn't God know who I am? I mean, who I really am? Can He not see into my heart? Does He not remember how much I hated Him for the pains in my life as a young man?

As a young man, I harbored vile hatred for Him for not coming to my rescue when home wasn't what I wanted. One on occasion, I shook my fist at him and called Him every foul name I could think of Him. I did not fear Him, nor did I respect or love Him.

His existence was offensive to me. I thought I could keep Him at bay with religious rules, Bible knowledge, church attendance. I thought it could make me good enough. If it wasn't, that was His fault for He owed me. He owed me for everything I wanted He hadn't provided, and the peace I so desperately needed. The peace I couldn't find in my religious actions.

But, then He came. He sent two of His. They were the real deal. To them, they said my deeds didn't matter. God's presence in them invoked rage, bitterness in me, and I thought I could drive them off with my offensive behavior. But they stayed.

In time, I was vulnerable. I cowered from the truth, shuddered from the presence of His love, and begged God that He would just leave me be. I didn't deserve Him in my life, my mind and especially my heart where the most vilest of my expressions reigned.

But, He didn't leave. His presence in others of His made me want to both flee from and run to Him.

Then, He showed me the end of my path. The debt of my sin. In desperation, I turned to Him, and He revealed Himself as He truly was. No longer was He a God Who could not be satisfied, but one Who gave without cost to me. No longer did I see Him as ugly and condemning, but beautiful, forgiving and the ultimate expression of holiness, and in His Son the eradication of my sin, the propitiation of His wrath, and the arms extended as a bridge to His original design of perfect fellowship.

In Christ, He has forgotten who I was. When I say He has forgotten, it is not as if He doesn't know who I was. He just doesn't act toward me based off of it, but acts toward me based on the work of His Son. In Christ He has made me new. Now I find myself lost in Him... even when I still have the habits of running from Him. When I try to run, He is swift to cut me off and embrace me. His tidal wave of love smothers me to my knees, His presence fills me with peace, and His grace arrests my soul.

By His free gift in Christ, I am forever His. I deserve to be remembered for who I was and spend forever in agony separated from Him. But by His love, who I was is forgotten, and in Christ, I am forever in His grasp, for He has ransomed my soul.

"O Come, O Come Emmanuel and ransom captive Israel..."