Set Aside

You never know how God will work.

I was standing in church after the service last Sunday when a friend asked me, how I was doing… essentially, “How’s it going?” 

Well, I was just fine I said. But something about her inviting manner caused me to admit that I was weighted down by a nagging discouraging thought. 

“I keep thinking about other things I failed at before,” I said, “things that stressed me out and made me tired and discouraged. And I wonder if this is just who I am… A person who will always get overwhelmed and fail.”

We were standing at the entrance of the church doors and her little baby was asleep in her arms. 

She didn’t bombard me with philosophical thoughts as I might have tried to do to someone. We just chatted a little. She said some encouraging things to me and we talked about her baby, and then we went on our separate ways.

In fact, it was hours later that I was reflecting on what my friend had said, and thinking of what I had said, in response to her inviting question. I was reading a verse in Colossians and ran across the phrase “record of debt”. 

I wrote “The Record of Debt” in my journal and underlined it. Then, I listed all the things that I was thinking of that I feared defined me. I remembered my failures in the past: jobs, relationships, things that exhausted and finally sickened and defeated me. I realized that in each situation, my sin had been unbelief. The circumstances had seemed so impossible that I had trouble believing that God was with me or that he could take me through. This had led to despair and defeat. 

That is my past identity, my past record.

But this is what the verse said:

And you…God made alive together with Him [Christ], having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the RECORD of DEBT that stood against us, with its LEGAL DEMANDS. 

This He set aside, nailing it to the cross.

Colossians 2:13-14

When I first applied to work in heart surgery, I had an interview with Dr. Halloran. I took my resume, neatly typed on one page, and frightfully slim. I knew I wasn’t qualified for the job, but perhaps he would be impressed with some of the other things I had done, the books I had written or my volunteer work. Perhaps my good deeds would outweigh my lack of experience.

I remember, like it was yesterday, the way he glanced over that paper, scanning it for about 7 seconds. He asked one or two questions, wasn’t impressed with my answers, and finally turned the paper upside down on his desk. 

Then he gave me a piercing look, and began to explain the difficulties of the job I had so naively applied for. 

When I read the verse “Canceling the record of debt… This he set aside”, I thought of the way Dr. Halloran turned my resume upside down. 

When something is “set aside”, it isn’t worth contemplation. It’s not important to the task at hand. It’s not sufficient. It’s not relevant. 

Oh the things we try to offer to God! We try to convince ourselves we are good, or we get discouraged that we are not as good as we should be. But when we bring our record to Christ, he sets it aside, nailing it to His cross. 

Gone, just like that. Upside down and forgotten. There is only One who could do this, and oh the agony he must have endured to go to the cross, with the records of all our debts flapping around him, knowing his death was the one thing that would CANCEL our sin and its legal demands! Knowing his sacrifice would SET ASIDE our legacy of pride, if we only believe! 

I’m so relieved! How I have been a Christian for so long, only to keep discovering new truths, I don’t know. But this is the beauty of the Christian life: not that we find we are good, but that we learn where to go with our badness. Not that we have attained, but that we come to believe in the One who has attained, the One who loved us so much. 

I’m so relieved, once again. 

I’m relieved that, because of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, I am free to believe that God is with me every day, and that this reality negates my past record of unbelief. 

I’m relieved that with Christ, the confusion of life’s path gives way to sunshine and beauty. 

I’m relieved that Scripture is alive and powerful centuries after it was written and that it cuts through my heart like a scalpel, still. 

I’m relieved that God knows just who to put in our lives and that he can use every Christian in ways we can never anticipate, even through such a simple question as, “How’s it going?”