Don’t try and wipe your hard drive. You can’t. And that’s a good thing. It shows how much I respect you.

Mark I want to explain how your history, everything that has happened in your life. The incredibly painful things, the beautiful things. The terrible mistakes and the wonderful highlights. All of your history is VERY important to me. It’s your life. Which is why it’s important to me - you give it value. I love you, as a result I love your story. I don’t want you to wipe it and start again, you can’t anyway. Wherever you go you take your history. You can try to bury it, pretend it doesn’t exist, attempt to start a new history, or you can show it all to me and ask what I have to say about it. And what I say will amaze you. I can heal and restore the bits you believe the most horrible.

I don’t see your history as a list of sins and errors. I see it as your story. The story of the man, woman or child I love. It’s what has happened through and to you. I laugh at the funny bits, feel joy at the wonderful bits and weep over the bits that have hurt and torn you.

Do we have to talk about this?

What’s the problem?

It’s deep and if this is a conversation for others to read it makes me look like I’ve got issues.

You have.

Yes but do we have to keep making that obvious to everyone else?

Mark they all have issues too. And that’s the point. I want you and everyone else to stop pretending you don’t. I want you to know that I love all your issues, all the history that has brought them about. It’s your story.

So you like all this horrible stuff that we do to each other?

Of course not. But the place is a mess. And you’re all busy messing it up even more. When you run from a mess, you cause even more mess. You’re messing up yourselves and those you love too. Everyone! You’re a champion at running Mark, but you’re not alone.

Ok, but still, why talk about it?

Because the talking heals. Especially when it’s the Creator doing the talking.

Alright, sorry I’ve distracted you from what you were saying.

Mark I want you to know that you, every single person on the face of the earth, distracts me. You know what it’s like to be in love with someone. They distract you. What concerns them concerns you. You find you can’t concentrate on your normal responsibilities. Does that distraction bother you?

Yes.

So what would you prefer – to be with them and the distractions they bring, or without?

With.

And so it is with me. You distract me. I love it. Absolutely love being distracted by you. And by every single one of the billions of others who distract me.

God this conversation is going all over the place. It seems to have no obvious point.

Yes it does. The point is you. A conversation is like that. It meanders, wanders about. A good conversation doesn’t have to have an agenda. It’s two friends, or more, enjoying the exchange of thoughts and ideas, but most importantly just enjoying being together. The talking joins you. That’s what’s happening here Mark. The talking is joining us. Do you want that?

Obviously.

Why?

Because I’m undone without it now.

That sounds religious. Won’t people think you’re pretending to be like Paul – ‘disdaining earthly things, and pushing into me’?

Unlikely! Anyone who reads these conversations can see that because of the damage I’ve done to myself and others I’ve ended up in a situation where I must hear your voice just to stay sane. I have to hear you say things that I can actually understand. I have to hear them in language I can understand. And I have to hear them many times each day. Have to! Without your steadying voice, the torment of my mistakes destroys me.

That’s your enemy. His voice. Your history is important to him too. He wants to convince you that you must escape it. But of course that’s impossible. You can address it, have it healed, which takes a lifetime. Or you can try to wipe it, but you can’t separate yourself from it. It is your history. That’s a fact. And the enemy will keep opening it up to you. You have a choice though. You can allow him to open it up and torment you with it, or you can allow me to open it up and heal you with it. But you can’t wipe it. Not possible.Tell me what he torments you about.

My history. What I’ve done. He points out the way that I destroyed. He shows me how, if I’d known how to listen to you, I could have changed decades ago. How I could have recognised the damage I was doing and stopped it. He laughs at me that I didn’t. He shows me in detail the hurts I caused.

And?

And I have nothing to say. A shallow ‘I’m saved now, and all that is at the foot of the cross’ doesn’t cut it with you God. The damage and scars are still there. And what about those I’ve harmed. I have no idea how bad it is for them. Here I am bleating as though I’m the one who was damaged. I DID the damage.

And now we’re back to where this conversation started Mark. The thing I wanted to discuss. All of that history. All the mistakes you’ve made. All the damage that you’ve done to others. All the damage done to you. All of that is VERY important to me. I want you to know that. Your successes. Your failures. And no, they’re not all past and now you can’t do anything about them. They are a current factor of your life. They’re not over. They are now. I don’t want to simply remove them, pretend they never happened, wipe your hard drive. I want to discuss them. Heal the damage you’ve done, and the damage done to you. But I don’t want to remove you from situations that hurt. I want to use you to redeem those situations and turn them back into situations that build. You humans are constantly wanting to start again. To wipe what’s happened. Your history hurts so you want it erased so you can build a new one. I don’t want that. Let’s be practical about this. Some of the damage you’ve done has been to your kids. Do you want new kids?

No of course not. But I’d like the damage to disappear.

It can’t. It’s done. But if you’ll stay talking to me, eventually you’ll see much of that damage repaired. It will take a life time though. Are you prepared to go through with that?

I don’t see much choice.

No. But there is. There’s the choice to wipe what’s happened, pretend it never did, and just say something shallow like ‘Jesus has forgiven all that, so I can just get on with the rest of my life now.’

You just said I can’t wipe it.

Yes. But you can pretend you have, or that the whimsical Jesus has done it so you can start a new pretend ‘no mistakes’ history. As if. You’re human Mark. It’s ok.

Understandably, you humans want to wipe the mistakes you’ve made. You get impatient with others who seem to want to hold on to and remember the pain caused by the decisions you’ve made. Your evangelical Christianity doesn’t help either. This idea that God wipes the past and you can pretend it didn’t happen. Yes I wipe the guilt, overlook your responsibility. But having done that, I want to take you gently back to what happened and use you to heal yourself and those you have damaged. I don’t want you to run from the situation, I want to use you to heal it. God remembers and wants to address and heal the past. Not wipe it. It can’t be wiped, it’s happened. But it can be healed. I don’t want to wipe your relationship with your kids and give you new ones. I want to use the damage you’ve done, get right in there and address it so that the relationship once damaged, seemingly irreparably, can now be systematically, and gently, carefully sewn back together.

But that sort of healing is painful. It’s much easier to pretend you can wipe the old and start new. You can’t. That child will always be your child. That friend, will always be someone you befriended. Every relationship is eternal in so much as the history, what happened, the good and the bad, now exist. If you’ll let me, I’ll get involved in your history and gently, carefully bring each situation to a place of fullness. Each situation. Do you want that?

I don’t know if I’m capable. If it’s possible.

You are. It is. Everyone is capable. But only if they want to allow me to pry open and gently wipe clean every wound. There’ll be pain. But pain must be faced if you want healing. It’s the way of all medicine. Refuse to run from the painful Mark.

Don’t try and wipe the hard drive. You can’t. That’s not a punishment, not me sending your past to haunt you. It’s the very opposite. It’s a good thing. It shows how much I respect you. When you create a relationship it exists. Cannot be removed. Not even I can remove its history. I could change reality and do it, but that would change all of reality. And I won’t break my commitment to allow you sovereignty in your own life. Which means, among other things, that everything you create, every relationship, now exists. Whatever you do, that’s a fact. If you want me to, and this goes for every single human being ever, I will visit that history with you and together we’ll bring healing to it.

Painful? Extremely. Beautiful? Beyond measure. Your history, all of it, good and bad, wonderful highlights, terrible damage – by you and to you. is important to me and I’m talking about it, wanting to help heal it, make sense of it, take you back to it and address it. And that’s true of every single human being who does now, or has ever walked the planet. Your history, good and bad is VERY important to me.