by Crescentia Morais

Created on: June 23, 2010

GOD’S PSYCHOLOGY

‘Forget the former things’ is one of the best pieces of advice God has given us in His Word, as any shrink worth his salt will affirm. Certainly, mulling over the past can do all sorts of bad things to us ranging from sudden hair loss to resolute serial killing.

Of course, some former things are too traumatic not to mull over. No one except the sufferer can know the pain of the sufferer, or follow the labyrinthine contours of his or her injured mind and soul. Child victims, especially, become damaged in that private place where they are yet being formed, and grow up in a prison whose walls only grow closer as they grow older.

But even then, and perhaps all the more that’s exactly when, we need to begin the long, anguish-ridden path to forgetting the former things.

God knew all about psychology long before Wilhelm Wundt and company took over. Of course, good men and women they all were, and today, those of their ranks still do much to help damaged people get mended. They too say that for healing to take place, the past needs to be acknowledged as belonging to the past.

That’s because it’s true: to heal, distressing memories and former foolishness need to be forgotten.

God’s remedy is total, dealing with all aspects of the individual being, and therefore, it works when we allow it. Sure, healing takes time. Everything takes time to happen – goodness takes time to grow. Evil, too.

And every healing needs a starting place. God says forget the former things. Okay. First, we need to call those former things out into the open. Then, we need to make a decision to forget them because they are 'former things'; they have no place in our now.

But if they are truly former things, then we need to be in some way changed; something will need to be changed - thoughts or actions or lifestyle … something will have to go.

Then, what needs to be confessed needs to be confessed. Those who need to be forgiven need to be forgiven. Those from whom we need forgiveness will need to be sought out so that we can offer it.

And we need to believe that God does not condemn us because His Word says He doesn’t. And we must stop condemning ourselves.

And then, finally, we must just forget the former things.

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