Insofar as sin, nobody’s keeping score of your wrongdoing. God doesn’t hold a record of your wrongs over your head when it comes to your salvation. In fact, the Bible says that once you repent of your sins and ask Him for forgiveness, He removes your sin as far as the east is from the west. “As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.” That’s Psalm 103:12.
I don’t remember where I heard it, but I’m going to reiterate it because I hadn’t thought of it this way before someone else said it. That Psalm is really cool because east and west are the only directions that never touch, by definition. If you travel north, you can, and will, at some point reach a place where you will no longer be going north, but south. If you travel south, you will end up going north once you reach a certain spot in Antarctica. But east and west don’t work that way. If you flew across the Atlantic Ocean from the east coast of the U.S. all the way across Europe, Asia, and back to North America, you would always be traveling east. Even once you passed the spot you started, you’d still be going east.
The metaphysical points labeled “east” and “west” never touch. They actually become increasingly distant as time goes on. It’s kind of like the expansion of the universe. One edge of the universe continues expanding while the opposite does the same. Those two “edges” of the universe are constantly growing farther apart.
Mathematically, it’s like infinity and negative infinity. The points of these numbers aren’t fixed. They’re ever-increasing and constantly creating a wider gap between the two of them. It’s kind of abstract, but incredibly cool when you really think about it.
Last Monday, I wrote about shame along with Dan Bremmes’s “Get up Again.” Today, I’m talking about moving past the sin involved in shame with Matthew West’s “Day One.”
These two songs have similar themes, though I particularly love the idea behind the phrase “day one.” Day one is a moniker for a new beginning. A fresh start. A first step. It’s acting as if the things that came before no longer exist, and your journey of life only begins on that day.
So, let’s talk about it. The song opens with the sentiment of stepping out of the past:
Well, I wish I had a short term memory
Wish the only thing my eyes could see
Was the future burning bright right in front of me
But I can't stop looking back
Sometimes, it’s easier to remember particularly bad memories because of the emotions attached to them. Personally, I can remember almost every single time I embarrassed myself throughout my life because the memories are burning with the shame and embarrassment I felt at the time. Our brains store and recall information far more easily when that information is supercharged with emotion. That’s what the opening lines of the song mean. It’s hard to forget those things, even when there is so much good to look forward to.
Things would be far easier if we were perfect and never messed up, but we can’t hold on to that image, and we end up wishing and praying for God to just remove our imperfections, as the next stanza of the song says. But I’m here to tell you, in case you didn’t know, that such a thing will not happen in this life. God will not remove your imperfections while you’re still on Earth. And that’s where the lead into the chorus comes in:
I wish I wasn't wishing anymore
Wish I could remember that nobody's keeping score
I'm tired of throwing pennies in a well
I gotta do something
Here goes nothin’
It’s time to stop wishing and praying for things to change when you aren’t doing anything about it yourself. Like I said last week, we wallow in shame and avoid coming to God a lot out of that shame, and it stops us from doing what we need to do for the kingdom. You have to do something. You have to get up and change yourself.
See my hourglass is upside down
My someday soon is here and now
The clock is tickin'
And I'm so sick and tired of missing out
I love the imagery of these lines. There’s so much in these four lines that I won’t be able to talk deeply about all of it without making this about 4,000 words longer than it should be. This is a call to action. It’s saying not to let your sand sit at the bottom of the hourglass as if time isn’t ticking by. Turn the thing up and get your own timer going. See, you’ve only got so much time on Earth, whether you’re measuring it or not (as in the third line) so you’d better start measuring it.
The second line expresses the same sentiment as Matthew West’s “Do Something.” You keep saying you’re going to do it tomorrow? Soon? It won’t happen. Make your tomorrow a today. Make your soon a right now. Otherwise, it’ll never come. Don’t miss out on the things God has for you because you won’t make today Day One.
Every morning, mercy’s new, so start over and march on to the beat of a new drum. Today could be day one of the rest and best of your life if you’re willing to step out on the grace of the amazingly forgiving God we have who is so merciful He is willing to let you start each day anew. He is willing to essentially forget every wrong you have ever done so that, to Him, you committed no wrongs at all.
Don’t sit there wishing that you didn’t do those things you did. Get up and live like those things didn’t happen.