Lesterday

Recently I was playing with my granddaughter, Raya.  I don’t remember what I was talking with her about but she said, “Lesterday, when I was little…”  Raya is four.

To Raya any event in life that happened before today happened "lesterday."  There are no distinctions made for last week, last month, last year.  Time has only three categories for Raya.  "Lesterday, today, and tomorrow.  She begins every day with a clean slate.  Tomorrow hasn't happened. "Lesterday" is gone.  She remembers some events from "lesterday," but they don't affect today.  She doesn't get stuck on what happened "lesterday."  Her focus is today.

In Isaiah God says, “I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.” (Isaiah 43:25 ESV)

God cannot be God and be unable to remember, so this inability to remember must be different than the actual event of recalling things.  It is clear from this passage and others that God doesn’t remember our sins in a way in which He holds them to our account.  As Eugene Peterson translates the Isaiah passage, "But I, yes I, am the one who takes care of your sins—that's what I do. I don't keep a list of your sins." (Isaiah 43:25 MSG)

Is this what the apostle Paul had in mind when he wrote, “No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us." (Philippians 3:13-14 NLT)

Paul could certainly remember the past.  He made a point of not remembering it in a way that kept him from moving forward.  One of the things I’ve noticed over the more than forty years of knowing Jesus is that sin sets me back but the remembering of that sin with shame and discouragement also sets me back.  Either way the accuser has me neutralized because I’m focused on my "lesterday."  Paul says he can forget his past because God does.

Raya doesn’t keep a list of what happened "lesterday."  She’s too busy living today to the full.  There will come a time when her memory is developed enough to remember and learn from what happened before today, but I pray she can, like Paul, forget the past and look forward to what lies ahead in her relationship with God.