As I’ve mentioned before, I am directionally challenged. I know the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, but I’m often surprised to see it doing one of those things in a direction I thought was south. One of the psalmists described the amazing mercy of God toward us by saying that is how far God has removed our sins from us. As far as the east is from the west.

I generally think of those words as two opposite points on the map. They are very, very far apart. And, too often, I think of my former sin-self that same way. Not obliterated. Just far away.

But… I’ve been wrong. Here is how far the east is from the west:  If you get in your car this morning and start driving east, you will never, ever, ever reach west. (You will fall off into the ocean once you reach New York, but if you land on a ferry, you will keep going east.)

East is forever east. It never touches west. And my old sin-self is that far away from my new-creature-self.

Sometimes it doesn’t feel that way, of course. Sometimes it feels like the east and west are about to crash into one another and become something called ewst. But they can’t do that anymore than the sun can set in the south.

Thank God.