.....digging

When I was a boy, I had a golden retriever named Champ. Whenever we gave him a bone, he'd chew it till it was bare, then take off to bury it. But once it was buried, he would never let it lie. Every day, sometimes several times a day, he would make his rounds, going to every buried bone - dozens of them - and digging them up to chew on some more. Then he'd bury them again, only to repeat the process till the day he died.

Unlike my dog, God buries our sins and lets them lie: He never digs them up.  Like my dog, however, sometimes we dig up old sins, chew on them, confess them again, and bury them - but in a shallow grave whose location we memorize for convenient access. We do this not only to ourselves but others. 

We piously say, "I forgive you," but dig up old sins to chew on at our pity parties, wave them in front of others as gossip, or use them as weapons of revenge or tools to barter and manipulate. In doing so, we become obsessed with sin instead of the Savior. We give more credit to its power than to His. "Once confessed, sins should be forgotten. We should choose to dwell on them no longer."  Randy Alcorn

“Their sins and iniquities I will remember no more.” Hebrews 10:17

“I, even I, am He who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more." Isaiah 43:25