SCOREBOARD
READ TITUS 3:1-7
We live near a community football stadium where local high school teams compete for conference titles and state championships. Sports fans park their cars at a nearby shopping mall and walk to the stadium carrying their padded cushions, binoculars, blankets and thermoses of hot coffee. From our window we can detect the distant glow of the field lights illuminating the night games and we can hear the rousing cheers when a team scores.
As the teams huddle to plan their next play, all eyes are on the black and white scoreboard that is fixed at one end of the field. The scoreboard dutifully keeps count of every point earned and displays the final score to the entire neighborhood. That scoreboard always has the last say, announcing the fate of the team branded either “winner” or “loser.”
I have friends who are avid football fans. They remember the scores of the games played by their favorite teams, who they played, when and by how much they either won or lost. It is like they carry a scoreboard in their mind that helps them keep track of every season.
Football trivia is fascinating for those who have the memory capacity to keep it all straight. Players, stats, fumbles, touchdowns, and surprising victories are compartmentalized in a cerebral filing cabinet, ready to pull out and share with fellow football addicts!
The ability to remember is a blessing from God. That ability is part of the power of living that He gives all of us. “…though He is not far from each of us; for in Him we live and move and exist.” (Acts 17:28) Some versions of the Bible say, “have our being.” Due to basic cognitive abilities, we can usually recall people’s names when we see them, remember faces, occasions, milestones such as graduations, first car and first jobs. First loves are especially embedded within us along with the heartbreak of relationships that did not work out.
Among all the good experiences that we live through, there are also difficulties we wished had never happened. Some of those events were life-altering and consequential. People also experience deep personal offenses that, no doubt, cause lasting pain.
Our natural reaction to emotionally handle those types of offenses is to inwardly erect a “scoreboard” to keep track of offenses. We rehearse them in our mind and then vividly describe them to other people. We may carry the outrage in us for many years, keeping the memory alive. At some point, though, we would do well to apply forgiveness to those deep wounds.
By offering this lesson on forgiveness, I am in no way diminishing the hurtful situations that people have been through. I am sure these events were very hard to go through. I wish we had a better world to live in, where people value the lives of their fellow human beings. Unfortunately for right now, we don’t.
“For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another.” (Titus 3:3) The problem comes when, as this scripture cites, we spend our life in the trap of hating others for the harm they caused us. We never move on from those memories and they start to haunt us in an all-consuming way. The offenses we have stored are all we think about and all we talk about. They are a cancer to our soul, eating us up inside. Erecting that “scoreboard” and then continually adding to it makes us live our life recounting offenses and wallowing in history that cannot be changed.
The way to break free from this habit is to realize that, although we possess the power to live, we also need power beyond our scope to forgive and forget. We need God’s power to find emotional healing for offenses that have piled up over the years.
The scripture continues, “But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds, which we have done in righteousness, but according to mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit.” (Titus 3:4-5) God loves mankind and has the power to reach us deep inside where our pain is stored. He can renew those parts of us that have been damaged so badly. He can wash those soul wounds clean.
First, we need to seek God and ask for His forgiveness of our offenses. “Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors.” (Matthew 6:12) By turning to Christ and asking for His help, He can effectively erase our “scoreboard” and wipe out the calculations. We will still remember the incidents, but the pain will be removed, and sin will no longer have power over us.
Ask Jesus to come to your aid and help you to forgive. He will enable you to have the healing that you need. As you recall the incidents and the perpetrators involved, mention them to God and ask Him to renew you. We can absolutely experience the cleansing of our conscience. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9)
We read in 2 Corinthians 13:5 that love keeps no record of wrongs. “Love…does not take into account a wrong suffered…” When we choose to love rather than hate our offenders, we take our life back from them and look forward instead of backwards. We can move on and live in creative ways rather than be haunted by our memories.
We can form a new habit to replace the “scoreboard” by leaning into God’s love each time we feel offended. God’s love is infinitely greater than all the harm we have experienced. It is a matter of choosing to let go of our past and trusting God for His love that covers a multitude of sins.
