Forgive and Forget

In the spring of 1997 I was 19 years old and a sophomore at Oregon State University. I had gone to OSU to study fish and wildlife and earn a degree that would let me play outside all day in the woods. What I ended up with was a lot of painful memories from poor decisions I made. I went very quickly from a naive kid from southern Oregon to a drug user and alcoholic. My life revolved around where I could find my next $50 sack, my next case of beer, and while I was wasted, where I could get laid. I got to the point where I was getting in trouble with the law, and even selling drugs to friends of mine.

An amazing attribute of God is that He never holds you with a tight grip. Kinda like my Dad taught me to hold a golf club "Like you are holding a bird: not so loose that he will fly away, but not so tight you will squeeze his head off."

God has a path for you, but he doesn't force you to do anything. You have to choose to follow, to be obedient. YOU have to make decisions. YOU have to make choices. Like the choice to forgive the people who hurt you.

On March 20th, 1997, the night before I left OSU and transfered to Southern Oregon University, I was hammered again. On multiple drugs and finished with who knows how many beers sitting in my friends house. Now when I say "friends," I don't mean in the real sense. None of these guys would help me move, or would talk about real things, about life. None of them would be there for me when I needed them to be, I knew it, they knew it. They were all I had, and I opened up to them on many levels without them really, truly being a friend. That night I faced rejection. A group of friends who I shared little in common with except who we bought drugs from, told me that I was a loser, that I wasn't worth their friendship. At the same time, God embraced me, literally. I was no longer high or drunk, but I was sober, and I distinctly heard God for the first time in my life: "Andy, you are My child and I love you. Get up and leave this house, you are Mine; this is not the life I have for you." And with that I stood up and left that house on 9th and Harrison. Most of those guys I have never seen again.

That was the moment I believe I became a follower of Christ. Yes, there have been ups and downs, lots of them, but this was the point where I started believing in Christ not because my parents wanted me to, or my friends were at Sunday school, but because I knew He was the Way.

One of my biggest struggles since that day, "the day of my conversion," has been to forgive my friends at OSU, or anybody who has hurt me for that matter. It has only been through my realization that I am a loser, and I am worthless that I can truly forgive others. Without Christ I am nothing. I can do nothing to earn His love, He just loves me because I chose Him. Isn't that amazing. I don't have to go to the right church, or even go to "church" at all. We don't have to go on this trip ministering to the poor to earn God's love, He has already given it to us. If He loves me and has forgiven me, a loser and a sinner, why can't I forgive those who have wronged me.

Recently I realized a truth that has clinched it all for me: Not only does God forgive us, He FORGETS it all too. He isn't sitting up on His throne saying: "I love you guys, and I forgive you of all the things you've done," as He makes marks in His Book of Naughty Deeds like Santa Claus. He has FORGOTTEN! My pea sized brain can't fathom or comprehend. I can definitely forgive those guys at OSU, and I have, but I struggle with forgetting the pain they unleashed.

I am reading Brennan Manning's Ragamuffin Gospel. In it he says "Christianity happens when men and women accept with unwavering trust that their sins have not only been forgiven but forgotten, washed away in the blood of the Lamb. . . . . 'A sad Christian is a phony Christian, and a guilty Christian is no Christian at all.'"

A true lover of Christ is someone who is not sad or guilty, but overjoyed that God's love will never be taken away from them - no matter who our friends are, or what we have done with them.

"For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, will come between us and separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Romans 8:38-39