There Is Freedom in Forgetting

Forgetting gets a bad reputation. We think of it as carelessness or weakness; as if remembering is holy and forgetting is neglect. Yet Scripture calls us to a kind of holy forgetfulness. Paul wrote, “Forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead.” (Philippians 3:13) He was not talking about memory loss; he was talking about freedom.

There is freedom in forgetting. Not in denial or repression, but in the quiet act of faith that releases the past into God’s keeping. Forgetting is not something that happens to you; it is something you choose. It is a verb of trust.

When you forget by faith, you are not erasing the story; you are ending its authority. The memory may remain, but the emotional charge is gone. What was once pain becomes perspective. A memory without its sting becomes wisdom. That is the fruit of maturity—the ability to remember without reliving.

Forgetting means you stop turning around to measure how far you have come. It means you stop re-litigating the story in your mind. It is not anger that fuels this forgetting; it is peace. It is trust in God’s justice and His timing.

The Hebrew prophets understood this. “Do not remember the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing,”  God said through Isaiah.  Forgetting, in this sense, is not rebellion; it is worship. It is agreeing with God that the story is finished and a new story has already begun.

David used another word for it: weaned, or in the Hebrew, gamal. “I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother.” (Psalm 131:2) To be weaned is to love without needing, to rest without grasping. That is the mature form of forgetting; not apathy, but peace. The love remains, but the demand is gone.

There is freedom in forgetting because forgetting is a form of forgiveness. It is letting go of your right to rehearse the wound. It is saying, “God, You have closed that chapter; I will not keep reopening it.” The forgetting of faith is not lazy; it is decisive.
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Forgetting is not emptying your mind; it is filling it with trust. You stop thinking of what left, and start thinking of Who stays. You stop rehearsing the echo, and start listening for the still small voice.

There is freedom in forgetting. The kind that does not erase the past but redeems it. The kind that leaves the door to the future wide open. The kind that says with quiet confidence, “It is a settled issue. The Lord will keep me in perfect peace because my mind is stayed on Him.”
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Scripture References
Philippians 3:13  Isaiah 43:18–19  Psalm 131:2  Isaiah 26:3