Etch-A-Sketch

In Sunday school this past Sunday, the teacher compared life to an Etch a sketch.  Do you remember that toy?  Is has a red frame and two white knobs.  As you turn the knobs, a drawing appears in the frame.  Finished with the sketch?  Then just shake the toy, and the picture disappears.

Is life like an etch a sketch?  When we are forgiven, do our sins disappear?  

I don't know.  I think we have a hard time believing that because we see that the affects of sin do not disappear.  Sin leaves a mark in our lives and in other people's lives.  That marks doesn't go away when the sin is forgiven.  Consequences and scars remain.  

If life were like an etch a sketch, then we could do whatever we wanted to do, and know that tomorrow, when we shake the frame, and ask for forgiveness, that everything would go back to a blank slate.  

I truly believe that God forgives sin -- any sin, all sin.  No sin is beyond his reach to forgive.  Given that, we can't shake our lives and return to life as if the sin never happened.  We have to deal with the consequences.  We have to try to bring healing and wholeness to what we have broken.  

I don't think life is like an etch a sketch.

Swamp Walk at Murrell's Inlet