A little boy and his sister once spent a week visiting their grandparents on their farm. The little boy was given a slingshot to play with out in the woods. He practiced and practiced, aiming at trees or old tin cans, but he could never hit his target.
Discouraged, he headed back to the house as dinner time was approaching. As he was walking back, he saw Grandma’s pet duck. Just out of impulse, he let the slingshot fly, hit the duck square on the head, and killed it. He was shocked and greatly saddened to harm the innocent duck.
Panicked, he hid the dead duck in a wood pile, only to see his sister, Sally, watching! Sally had seen it all, but she said nothing.
After lunch the next day, Grandma said, “Sally, let’s wash the dishes.” But Sally said, “Grandma, Johnny told me he wanted to help in the kitchen.” Then she whispered to her brother, “Remember, I know about the duck!” So Johnny did the dishes.
Later that day, Grandpa asked if the children wanted to go fishing but Grandma said, “I’m sorry, but I need Sally to stay here and help make supper.” Sally just smiled and said, “That’s ok. Johnny told me HE wanted to help make supper!” She whispered to her brother again, “Remember, I know about the duck!” So Sally went fishing while Johnny stayed home and helped make dinner.
After several days of Johnny doing both his chores and Sally’s, he finally couldn’t stand it any longer. He came to his Grandma and confessed in tears that he had killed her pet duck. Grandma knelt down, gave him a hug, and said, “Sweetheart, I know. You see, I was standing at the window and saw the whole thing, but because I love you, I forgave you. I was just wondering how long you would let Sally make you her slave.”
In our story here, the grandmother saw all, and forgave her grandson. In the Bible we read that the Father knows all, and for His child, forgives all. How complete is that forgiveness?
Psalm 103:12 says, “As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.”
Isaiah 1:18 says, “though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.”
And Hebrews 8:12 speaks of the Lord saying of His people, quote, “their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.”
Friend, do you really think you have any secrets from the Lord? Is the enemy holding you hostage to your own thoughts, as you remember this sin and that sin—sins that, for the child of God, these verses tell us the Lord has removed as far as the east from the west,
that have been turned from scarlet to white as snow, that the Lord says he remembers no more?
In light of what the Lord has already declared in these and many other verses, ought we not to heed the words of Phil 3:13-14, where we read of, quote, “forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”
As the little boy in our story turned to his grandmother, so, too, child of God, turn to your HEAVENLY Father.
