“As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us” (Psalm 103:12).
In her book Hope Lives Here, my friend Janet Bly tells about driving through a desolate section of country road in central Idaho where she encountered a sign that warned, “No Digging Allowed!” She said that until that moment she hadn’t thought about anyone wanting to dig in such an out-of-the-way place. But then she began asking herself, “Why was the sign posted?” Were cables buried underneath? Were there artifacts or gold hidden there? Or were there ancient graves which were unmarked?
Simply, “No Digging Allowed!” Honestly, I’d like a few of these “No Digging Allowed” signs in HTML or computer code which I could plant in the memory bank of some people I know–a kind of red screen similar to the “You have a virus” warning which Norton anti-virus software puts on my screen when I get an e-mail with a virus attached. Believe me, if I’ve been dozing, seeing the red warning brings me to immediate attention.
Why would I like some “No Digging Allowed” signs? Plenty of reasons. I’m thinking of the young pastor whose wife had confided to him that before she married him, before she had become a believer in Jesus Christ, she had been sexually involved with a young man. Instead of closing the door on something which happened years before, he kept prodding, digging to know more. With tears she said, “I’ve told him everything there is to tell him, and it’s ruining our marriage.”
I know some folks who made bad business decisions years ago. On paper they had a lot of money, but then the stock fell and they rode it to the bottom, and when things leveled off, they had nothing. They keep reliving the “what if” or “if only” game. Wives dig their husbands, and sometimes husbands use the shovel and hit back. “No Digging Allowed” is not a bad principle.
I know countless hundreds of people who live with a failure complex. They made a mistake, they failed, they took the wrong turn in life, married the wrong person, went the wrong way, and their failure keeps them from moving ahead. “As long as the present is at war with the past,” said Winston Churchill after the terrible conflict we know as World War 2, “there is no hope for the future.”
At some point you have to put a sign “R.I.P.” (the kind you see over the villain’s grave in an old western move), which means “rest in peace,” on the burial place of yesterday’s failure, and then post a “No Digging Allowed” sign as well. Let go of your past.
In Micah 7, the prophet asks a question of God: “Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance?” Then he adds, “You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy. You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea” (Micah 7:18,19).
There’s good news, friend. When God forgives your failures, He tramples on them and puts a “No Digging Allowed” sign over them. He takes your iniquities and casts them into the deepest sea and puts up a “No Fishing” sign. Can you do less?
I don’t know if Janet Bly ever found out why the sign had been posted on that isolated Idaho highway, but I do know that when God says, “No Digging Allowed,” it is not to pique your curiosity but to give you stern warning that what lies beneath, buried in the sands of forgiveness, should never again see sunlight. And that is good news. Very good news!
Resource reading: Micah 7.
Indeed, make yourself some “No Digging Allowed” signs–not to hide wrongdoing but to remind yourself that what God has forgiven needs never again to be confronted.
