As Far as the Sunrise from the Sunset

(Psalm 103)

Wake up, my soul.
Wake up and remember.

Remember the One who loves you,
whose love goes deeper than your worst day,
all the way down to the bottom of you.

And what does he do with the wrong you've done?

He forgives it.
Every bit.
He doesn't keep a list with your name at the top.
He doesn't fold his arms and turn away.

Sometimes you wonder if God is still angry.
You did the thing you said you wouldn't.
You feel small, and ashamed, and far.
You think, Maybe he's done with me now.

But this is how God's heart really is.

A good father, when his child trips and falls,
does not stand over her and frown.
He kneels.
He gathers her up.
He is tender, and slow to be angry,
and so full of kindness it spills over.

That is how he feels about you.
He knows you are only small.
He knows you are made of dust,
soft as a flower in the field,
here in the morning, gone by the evening wind.
He remembers.
And he is gentle.

Now think of the morning.
Think of the place where the sun comes up,
the sunrise, far in the east.
Now turn and think of the evening,
the place where the sun goes down,
the sunset, far in the west.

How far is the one from the other?

Farther than you could ever walk.
Farther than you could ever count.
You could run toward the sunrise your whole life long
and never, ever reach the sunset behind you.

That is how far God carries your sins away.

He doesn't tuck them in a drawer to find them later.
He doesn't hold them close to use against you.
He takes them, and he carries them,
east from west,
gone,
where you can never trip over them again.

Do you remember David, the shepherd boy
who sang to his sheep under the wide sky?
He grew up to be a king,
and he did a great wrong of his own.
And God forgave him, all of it,
and David never stopped singing about it.
This song is his.

But carrying sins that far is heavy.
Someone has to take them all the way to the sunset
and never bring them back.

And even as David sang,
that Someone was on his way.

A Father this tender was never going to stay far off in the sky.
One day he would come close,
with skin, and hands, and a real, beating heart,
and gather up every wrong thing,
yours and mine,
and carry it the whole long way to the west,
so it could never find its way home to you again.

His name is Jesus.

So wake up, my soul.
Wake up and be glad.

You are not too far.
You are not too much.
The arms that made the sunrise
are open wide for you.

Tonight, when the sun slips down behind the hills,
watch it go.
That is where your sins went.
And they are never coming back.