Quicksand

 
Do you remember the old Tarzan TV shows? The safari crowd is moving through the jungle and suddenly someone steps in the dreaded quicksand. “Don’t wiggle around!” I shout at the TV, because everyone knows doing that will just make you sink faster.

One day I was walking with my beloved Golden, Fannie, and I was one with the world. It was late afternoon, my favorite time to walk. The sun was fading, the shadows were falling, and it was quiet. The Upstate air was incredibly fresh and I was vibrating at a high frequency.

Suddenly a memory of something someone did to me barges into my Present. That dreadful Past. I had not thought about it, or them, in a long time. But now I am. And I’m stuck in quicksand.

If I want to “take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me,”¹ I’m going to have to let go of the past. I’m going to have to let go of what others have done.

But Satan will always seek to mire me in quicksand by reminding me. Never forget his 3-D strategy: Destroy, distract, and discourage.² If he can keep you out of a saving relationship with Jesus, he will destroy your soul. Failing that, he will never stop trying to distract you and discourage you, in order to destroy the “Life to the Full”³ Jesus has for you.

Satan so often uses past hurts, but you can let go of those past hurts, motivated by the fact that God has let go of your sins toward others. Your Heavenly Father wants you to appropriate his Divine Forgetfulness into your Present:

“The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. ⁹ He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; ¹⁰ he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. …  ¹² as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.”—Ps. 103:8-12

“As far as the east is from the west?” Satan doesn’t want you to think about that. And he sure doesn’t want you doing the same for others.

When you surrendered and placed your full trust and dependence on Jesus, you were immediately washed clean of the Past. God then dropped your sins into a deep abyss and planted a “No fishing” sign.

Your Father never goes back fishing into that abyss to revisit your sins, so let’s stop going back to revisit others’ sins. No fishing in the past anymore.

Leave it there.

God has.

I want a heart that has been touched so deeply by God’s personal forgiveness, that the idea of withholding forgiveness becomes a ridiculous, unacceptable alternative. When we feel the amazing grace of Jesus’ personal touch, we will in turn forgive more naturally. 

A heart transformed by grace is the only lasting remedy. 

1. Philippians 3:12 Italics added
2. Search Ministries
3. John 10:10