I struggled with this verse for years. I tried to reason how a perfect omniscient God could forget anything. It didn't make sense to me... until I experienced it.

After my wife was diagnosed with cancer, I distinctly remember looking at her one day, her body so weakened and devastated by the disease, and coming to a startling realization that would forever answer that question and change my life.

In any relationship, it is inevitable that hurtful things will happen, and ours was no exception. But as I looked at her that day, I realized that I could not remember them--in my heart. I could, with great effort, remember the "fact" that something had happened (and even that had become vague and obscure) but the "truth" was that the substance of the hurt was no longer there! It no longer existed in me!

I immediately thought of a "shortcut" on a computer desktop pointed to a file that had been deleted. The "shortcut" was somewhere in my mind, but the substance of it, the "file" if you will, was not there anymore. The "file" had been overwritten by love. 1 Pet 4:8 describes it: "...love covers over a multitude of sins." .

At last, I understood.

God may have intellectual knowledge that we have committed sin, but it is so completely resolved, so totally forgiven, and His love for us so intense and unconditional, that He does not remember it in His heart.

My wife passed from this life a few months later. But the lessons learned during that difficult, bittersweet, and wonderful time still remain. I now treasure those memories.

Romans 8:1-2 says, "Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death."

Trust Him. Trust His love for you.  It will set you free.

I know.

It set me free.

G. Randall Vaughn