Swept Away!

"I have swept away your transgressions like a cloud, and your sins like mist; return to me, for I have redeemed you."

(Isaiah 44:22)

With all the passages in Scripture about God removing our sins (i.e. casting them into the sea, washing them from scarlet to white, separating them from us like the East is from the West, etc.), I'd forgotten about this metaphor: God will sweep away our sins like a cloud.

Some folks may remember lying on the ground as a child, staring up at the clouds, trying to "see" shapes, animals, figures, etc. When I think of clouds, however, I go back to the time I lived in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park (on the Big Island of Hawaii). Located at 4,000 feet elevation, HVNP sits atop a steep cliff that slopes down to the ocean. Trade winds blow. Seriously! Sometimes rather fiercely, too! I remember many a day watching misty clouds literally zoom through our neighborhood. It was as if they were late for some very important event, and were doing all they could to catch up.

That's the image Isaiah is talking about, I think. Even the darkest clouds and the fiercest storms "blow by." Some may last a little longer than others, but clouds never stay. Never. How amazing that this is the way God treats our sins - swept away! What a gift. What grace. What joy! Praise be to God. AMEN.