Hindsight: Don’t “Forgive and Forget”- Remember and Rejoice!
We’ve all heard it said that hindsight is 20/20.
But that can only be true when we take time to look back.
So often in our world, despite people’s tendency to hold an enormous amount of grudges and bitterness, we’re told to “forgive and forget”.
We live in a world that is desperate to forget- the things we’ve seen, the things we’ve done or that have been done to us, the pain and brokenness, our own shortcomings…all the “bad” stuff. Meanwhile, we are frantically trying to preserve all the best parts of our lives by only sharing the highs, trying to turn back time and preserve our youth and beauty, taking countless photos in our attempts to get just the right one to feature this or that part of ourselves.
We want to forget the bad and remember the good.
But because they’re so often woven together, in forgetting the bad, we then run the risk of forgetting God’s goodness in the midst of our pain.
I think it’s very foolish to “forgive and forget”.
It is essential to forgive and forget in the sense that love holds no wrongs against you (1Corinthians 13:5). However, when we forget, destroy and dismiss our memories, and don’t remember what we’ve walked through, mistakes we’ve made, or lessons learned from those mistakes, we’re only going to keep backtracking and having to rehash our struggles.
It is when we reflect and recall our past that we can remember and learn from it.
The Bible puts great emphasis on remembering.
Especially in Deuteronomy, there are seemingly countless instances of the Lord directing the Israelites’ leader- be it Moses, or Joshua- to ensure that the people remember, to not forget their past and their history; the Israelites are encouraged again and again to recall not only their personal journeys and hardships, but also those of their ancestors and the generations before them.
They’re told to recall their struggles and pain and suffering that they would also recall the Lord’s deliverance and sovereignty and faithfulness in delivering them and walking with them, in providing for them, protecting them, and preparing them for the Promised Land.
Deuteronomy 4:9, 6:12, 7:17, and 8:2 are related references, but my personal favorite verse for this example is:
“Take care, lest you forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments and His rules and His statutes, which I command you today, lest when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied, then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, who led you through the great and terrifying wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water, who brought you water out of the flinty rock, who fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers did not know, that He might humble you and test you, to do you good in the end. Beware lest you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.’ You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you power to get wealth, that He may confirm His covenant that He swore to your fathers, as is it this day.”
~Deuteronomy 8:11-18 (emphasis mine)
I love how God repeats this instruction, so clearly and explicitly, in these verse. He wants us to remember, not for our glory or pride- because on our own we are desperately lost- but for His honor and glory. During seasons of blessing, we should not forget God’s presence with us during seasons of trial.
It is hard to trust God with our future, our every day, when we don’t take the time to see or understand His faithfulness in our past.
This concept is well-articulated in the song “Hindsight” by Hillsong Young & Free. A blessed reminder of the steadfast faithfulness of my Father, it moves me to tears each time I try to sing the words:
As I reflect, I find perspective
There in the best and worst days of this life
You were always on my side
You’re in the pain, You’re in the promise
And on the days the furnace finds my faith
You’re the fourth within the flames
I don’t need to know what the future says
‘Cause if the past could talk it would tell me this:
My God isn’t finished yet
If He did it before He can do it again
So I’ll trust Him with what comes next
For the God I know is known for faithfulness
Yeah, my hindsight says I can trust Him with what’s next
For the God I know is known for faithfulness
A current favorite, this anthem is a necessary daily reminder that God has brought me this far, and through all I needed; He has never given me a reason to distrust Him, so why should I waste my energy doubting?
Or, in the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, “All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.”
“What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise.”
This line from Laura Story’s “Blessings” is the perfect depiction of my present understanding regarding a particular season of hurt that I walked through in high school as a result of a breakup (as well as all of life’s pain).
All for our good and His glory does He allow trials to cross our paths.
Now I’m not going to rehash the whole, long story of that season, because quite honestly, after the amount of energy I wasted dwelling on it during my healing (#overthinker), I’m sick of it. But the healing has brought such freedom. Even that took approximately three years, though. Our God is one of patience, y’all.
Now, obviously that season was painful for me. I shed a lot of tears, and looking back, the grief I felt was somewhat out of proportion to the extent of the actual event. But my heart was too invested…
But through it all, even from the very first signs of a trouble, through all my hurt and all my not-so-blissful-ignorance as to reasons and motivations, I knew with a peace that permeated my unawareness that God was protecting me.
In the last couple years, through other friendships and reconnections, I’ve gotten an unexpected and insightful glimpse into the chaos and brokenness within his family that I have never known before, even after my own experience with them; I knew things were not healthy, but I was naive to how deep the issues ran.
I have to be careful not to look for God’s faithfulness as only present in times of trial- His goodness is just as evident during seasons of blessing as well!
When we take the time to look, it’s easy to see His divine fingerprints touching every area of our lives.
So yes, my first breakup was God’s mercy at work in my life. I know now that had I remained in that relationship I would have been so much more broken than I ever was by that family.
But God’s provision and timing- His faithfulness has been present in other times as well:
~When my family was praying about moving out of Oregon after my parents’ divorce. We were actively planning and preparing to leave, but still asking for His confirmation about the details. Then one day, April Fools Day actually, my mom was served foreclosure papers on our rental house because the landlord hadn’t been making payments. She looked up and said, “Okay, Lord.”
~When it was time for me to go to college, but I knew I wouldn’t have money to pay for it (and refused to get any sort of loans), He provided me with scholarships over and above what I needed to pay for classes.
~When we were participating in a three week period of fasting and prayer at our church- and then God prompted us to leave that church. Church shopping can be a long and tedious process, but God provided a wonderful new church home within two months of our switch.
These are just a few examples of God showing up in our lives. And if these were the only examples I had to offer, it’d still be enough to make me confident of God’s goodness and presence, and the delight He has in taking care of His children. His timing and His provision blow my mind, and I recall them often when I find myself getting frustrated that things aren’t happening as I think they should.
I am so overwhelmed by God’s goodness and faithfulness in protecting, guiding, and teaching me. I do not know if my true feelings can be fully expressed here without becoming too lengthy, so I’ll just pray that the thoughts I’ve shared here can encourage you to be still and know that He is God, during whatever season you’re walking through.
I often find myself reflecting upon my life. For no particular reason, my mind is drawn to the past. I love to remember.
Remembering is good, and essential, because it calls to mind God’s faithfulness.
We must always be careful, though, not to dwell in remembrance. We can’t live our lives looking back- how then will we move forward?
This is why God tells the Israelites in Isaiah 43:18-19 to “forget the former things; do not dwell in the past. See I am doing a new thing!”
He is not telling them to forget what He has done for them, because like we covered, He told them often to remember all He had done (see Deuteronomy).
What He’s telling them is to not depend on the same old methods and tactics that He had employed in previous generations; He’s changing it up- softening, convicting, and delivering them in new ways that may be painful and that they may not understand, but that are ultimately good because He is God; He’s preparing them for deliverance through a personal Savior, Jesus!- that would be very new to them. (See also Isaiah 48:3-8)
So let us abandon the mindset of “forgive and forget”, and instead take the time to “remember and rejoice”! I encourage you to take time to reflect, to recall moments of your life (all of it really) that you can see now were moments the Lord was present and working. Look back at all that you have survived, all that you’ve accomplished and overcome. And remember, that you were never alone on your journey. Trust Him to take care of you, because you are most valuable of all His creatures (Matthew 6:25-34) and He is well aware of all you need (even if it’s not what you want).
What examples do you have of God’s faithfulness at work in your life? How has God provided for you in ways that you continue to marvel at, even years later? I’d love to hear about them! Leave a comment below, or send me an email sharing about your story:)
My hindsight says I can trust Him with what’s next. For, the God I know is known for faithfulness.
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