Remember Not The Sins Of My Youth

As I listened to the Kavanaugh hearing addressing the allegation that thirty-six years ago he had drunkenly sexually assaulted a then 15-year old when he was 17, I kept hearing a scripture, a plea of a psalmist, playing over and over in my head: “Remember not the sins of my youth” (Psalm 25:7). I am not saying a person should not be held accountable for his crime. I am not saying that crime and sin do not have lasting consequences and inflict enduring injuries. I am not saying one should escape just retribution for the wrong he has done. I am not saying things should be swept beneath the rug. I am not saying the Judge did it or didn’t do it. I am saying that I believe that many have watched the debacle of the senate supreme-court-nominee confirmation hearing and, listening as Judge Kavanaugh was grilled about his alleged sordid past as a teenager, have, as I, thought, “I would not want the foolish, sinful, and crazy things I did as a teenager broadcasted for all the world to see.” The psalmist must have shuddered thinking of his youthful years when he first prayed and then wrote, “Remember not the sins of my youth.” Unless one is singularly unique, suffers amnesia, is an angelic alien living among us, or is in sharp denial, he has things he has done or thought in his youthful past of which he is not proud. He would not want these brought up. He would not want them made known. He is embarrassed by them. What if the things of your past had been exposed to the public and discussed by all for the past two weeks? How would you be feeling right now? It is painful enough for you just when thoughts of your youthful past unbiddenly surface from your mental archives into your consciousness. No, we would not want the sins of our youth aired. We want any that know of them to forget them. We want to forget them. And, especially, we want God to forget them. God could bring up each of our pasts. He could leak our youthful sins to the world. He doesn’t. He doesn’t bring them up. Not even to us. Not if we have confessed them, repented of them. It is Satan, the Accuser, that never forgets and constantly seeks to bring them. Of course, God being God, has perfect memory of all we have done. “Remember” then, isn’t so much about recall as it is about something being brought up and held against a person. Thus, when we say God doesn’t “remember” our sins but “forgets” them, “remember” and “forget” are best understood not in terms of mental recall but of debt. If it is brought up that you owe me $100, and I say, “Just ‘forget’ it,” I am not saying neither of us will from henceforth be unable to recall that debt. I am saying that I will not bring it up and hold it against you. Your not paying the debt will not be a determiner of how I treat you, respond to you. I release you from your responsibility to me for the wrong you have done me. That God does not remember, that God forgets, means that God will not be bringing my past up and holding it against me. Admittedly, the best way not to bring something up is to forget it, not remember it. If allegations are provable, there are those whose responsibility it is to bring up the crimes of one’s past and hold that one accountable. That said, did it ever occur to those who righteously dragged things up from the Judge’s past, which they hoped would corroborate the alleged crime, that they would not want someone to bring up their indiscretions and foolishness of their youthful years? It is always easier to bring up someone else’s past while hiding one’s own. I am thankful I was not sitting in the Judge’s chair, having my past remembered. I am thankful I was not the one doing the bringing up of his past. I am more thankful that God doesn’t bring up my repented of and forgiven past. If asked of youthful sins, I would have to admit, “I remember”; yet, I could quickly follow with, “But, God doesn’t!”

Remember Not The Sins Of My Youth

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