THOUGHT FOR TODAY, APRIL 5, 2017: THE FREEDOM OF FORGIVENESS

Several years ago country singer Randy Travis had a smash hit called Digging Up Bones. The words went something like this: “I’m digging up bones, I’m digging up bones, exhuming things better left alone; resurrecting memories of a love that’s dead and gone; tonight I’m sitting alone, digging up bones.”

Click below for link to song:
Randy Travis – Diggin Up Bones

Mr. Travis isn’t the only grave robber around. Many of us periodically exhume the wrongs of the past. Buzzards and possums can feed on carrion, but it is poisonous to the human spirit. I urge you to let go of the hurt and the guilt of the past. You may be thinking, “Well, I’ve tried, but it just keeps coming back.” The problem might be that we always mark the grave so we can find the bones. Forgiveness—total, free, unconditional forgiveness—is the answer. I can hear someone saying, “Yes, but…. “Whatever the “but” is, has harboring the hurt made you happy? Even if the person doesn’t deserve to be forgiven and does not want to be forgiven, don’t you deserve better than old bones?

Do you have some tombstones, some monuments to past wrongs, which need to be smashed? Healing cannot take place in your soul as long as you keep digging up old bones, exhuming things better left alone. If yours is one of those stubborn cases in which you have buried the bones a number of times, but keep going back and digging them up again, perhaps you need to try God’s way. When God forgives sin, he casts it into the depth of the sea (Micah 7:19). A burial at sea makes it impossible to erect a tombstone over the place of burial. Mentally gather up all the old bones of past hurts and broken relationships, put them in a bag, add some heavy rocks to act as an anchor, and then throw the sack into the depth of the ocean. Oh! Don’t forget to untie that rope from the sack—you know, the one you were going to use to pull the bag back to the surface periodically so that you can examine the state of the old bones.

Today’s thought is from the preface of The Freedom of Forgiveness, one of my 13-lesson workbooks for adult classes, published in 2002. This has been one of the best-selling of all my books and is available from Amazon.

Micah 7:19
He will turn again, he will have compassion upon us; he will subdue our iniquities; and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.